Eye of the Sword
by AlexKirko
Summary: What if Shirou was distorted by the fire much more than in the original novel? What if he realised how similar he was to a blade and set out to find his purpose and wielder as one? This is a story of a man trying to become the best person he can, while struggling with having had his personality wiped and replaced by a blade-filled inner world at the age of five. COMPLETE.
1. Prologue

Introduction

A couple words before we start. Fate/Stay Night is one of the best pieces of literature I have ever read, and Nasuverse is one of the most interesting fantasy worlds out there, so naturally I was tempted to play with it at some point (seriously, if you've only watched the anime, consider reading the visual novel—it's awesome). This is my first fic on , so don't be too harsh. Don't be too lenient either, though, because this is far from the first thing I have ever written.

First things first—acknowledgements. I was inspired to write this by ThirdFang's "From Fake Dreams". It's a great story based on the premise of Kiritsugu getting premonitions of all the possible routes of Fate/Stay Night before he dies. Check it out if you haven't read it yet for some reason. Some of the ideas introduced by ThirdFang are so awesome, I'm almost bound to use them. I will acknowledge when I do so.

This story is based on a different premise, though. What if Shirou was more distorted in the fire than he was in the original? What if he had gained more power in exchange for less remaining humanity and realized what he had become much sooner? And what if the boy turned sword fought not only to help others but to learn what it meant to be human again? As much as he could, in any case.

This is a story of Shirou, Destiny of Blades, Infinite Forge, Broken Soulshard and a lot of other pretentious Capital Letter Words he could have been called. This is a story of others, attempting to wield him as they would a sword or treat him as they would an ordinary human. Above all, this will hopefully become a story of someone lost, in search of a purpose.

A word regarding the magic system. I have read the original novel two times (plus a fair bit of Hollow Ataraxia), and I look things up on wiki when I need to, but my knowledge of Nasuverse is by no means perfect or complete. If you think you see something in here that is simply impossible, please mention it in a review or send a private message. I do bend the rules, however, when I need to.

I don't own Nasuverse or Fate/Stay Night, and this is written purely for my—and hopefully your—enjoyment. If you want to find the people who do own Fate, look up Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.

Anyway, enough of the foreword, let's get to the story.

 **UPD 2/23/17** : I have gone through the entire story to fix typos and edit stuff where I found the text sagging. It should be a smoother ride now, especially in the later chapters.

Hero's origin

The boy was no more. Memories remained: of a raging inferno, of black, cloying smoke scorching and flaying him alive from inside out, killing his lungs with each forced, rasping breath. But the pain barely registered anymore. It was more like acknowledging damage, he supposed. Yes, damage was a good word. He could still feel this much at least and avoid enough of it to continue to perform his function.

There was no leeway in his rescue, no extra minute or two that he would have lived had he not been saved by the exhausted man with a relieved, rugged face. The boy had burned everything inside without reserve. Everything he could. His memories. His emotions. His sense of self. And he kept on walking and let what was probably his entire family and all his friends burn in that fire too.

So now, for all intents and purposes, he shouldn't have counted as a sentient being. Most of what we will ever be forms long before the age of five which is why having all of it wiped out should leave a person broken beyond all hope of repair. All hope of ever rejoining society.

But, against all odds, something was forged or maybe simply bared in that fire, and so the boy drifted for quite a while in a dream in an endless sea of clouds occasionally pierced by distant lightning; thunder continuing to lazily echo through the slowly rolling vapor. For the longest time there was no thought, just a vague sense of belonging.

In this strange, mist-filled world one thing stood out against the background, a patch of clear and sharply defined existence among the things that didn't yet develop a form. A doctor's scalpel that Shirou had seen when he was admitted into the hospital in half-delirium. It was a simple tool, highly carbonated steel that had been used only in a couple operations, but it had probably saved quite a few lives. In his dream the boy turned his attention away from the blade and looked at his body.

He wasn't there. There was no flesh, just a barely visible metallic flicker where the master of the dream should have been standing.

Bewildered by the image, the boy tried to get his bearings but was able to recall only two things. First, his name, 'Shirou', was the only legacy left from his past life. And second, he and the scalpel were the same. Somehow they have become or always had been kin. He was a blade or an ingot of metal that still needed to be forged into one.

Remembering the happy face of the man who had saved him and thinking of how great it would be to have the same expression someday, Shirou vowed to gain one thing that the scalpel had—to become sharp enough to help people. Acting on instinct, he reached towards the blade and tried to pull it out, whatever 'out' meant. Instead, he woke with a sharp burning pain running through his body.

###

Emiya Kiritsugu was confused. Most of his power had been lost due to the abuse the former Magus Killer had subjected his body and Circuits to. What he hadn't managed to destroy himself was now thoroughly ravaged by the Grail's curse. If he weren't quite shaken up still, he would have laughed at the bitter irony of having been able to save a mere one person after a lifetime of attempting to bring peace to a world incurably poisoned by war and conflict.

If it could even be called saving. Kiritsugu was sitting in the living room and looking toward the kitchen, where the tiny existence now known as Shirou Emiya was standing on a stool and chopping vegetables while checking the simple recipe that Kiritsugu had transcribed into hiragana.

The boy had taken over the kitchen completely on their first day together, right after the Flaming Bacon From Hell fiasco. The Mage had long since discovered that he wasn't good with food unless it came in the form of military rations, but he forgot the exact extent of how bad he was. If there ever had been a person with E- Rank Cooking Skill, it was him.

He had reservations about letting a five-year old anywhere near sharp objects, but Shirou looked at him with those empty light-brown eyes, tilting his head in an unnatural mechanical-looking motion, and asked.

"You almost burned down the house. Why won't you let me in the kitchen until I do too?"

Cold, hard logic. Brutal honesty. Jaded, sharp perception. All of those didn't belong in a boy his age, and yet they were there, clear to see for everyone who talked to Shirou for more than a minute. When Kiritsugu asked him whether he'd like to go with him or go into the government system for orphans, the boy asked, "Can you help me grow better than they can?"

The Mage had no idea how to raise a child. To be honest, Irisviel and the Einzberns had been doing most of the job for him where Illya was concerned... still, he was quite sure he would be able to do better than the government would. At the very least, the boy would probably avoid the stigma that tended to follow anyone who could be labeled as 'different' in Japanese society. Plus, there was that fact that the child had quite a bit of potential for Thaumaturgy for a first-generation Magus and it would lead to nothing but trouble down the road if he was placed in a mundane family. So the former Magus Killed said "yes". Shirou nodded, and that was that.

Kiritsugu was jutted out of his reverie when the boy placed a towering heap of salad overlaid with cold beef on the low table before him, slightly panting from all the cooking and carrying.

They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes before Shirou looked up from his plate and fixed Kiritsugu with a gaze that had no business belonging to a five-year-old.

"I can cook; the damage is gone. Strange, too fast, I think."

The child cocked his head with that mechanical motion of his, "You promised to help me grow. Can we start?"

"What, now?"

To be honest with himself, Kiritsugu had to admit that he was still more than a little shaken up from the shitstorm that the Grail War culminated in, and yet the boy must have had it far worse.

"Any reason to wait?"

The boy's eyes remained lifeless and unblinking.

"Argh…"

The adult facepalmed as a quiet growl escaped his chest. Shirou just raised an eyebrow, continuing to wait for a response.

"Look, I'm still not in good enough shape to help with anything. Just let me rest for a few days."

The boy looked lost in thought more than normal for a few seconds before evidently reaching some sort of conclusion and nodding in acceptance.

"Okay. But maybe you have a friend who can help? Like those Fujimura people?"

After a moment's hesitation Kiritsugu smiled. He didn't know what to do with the kid, not yet, but he knew that he wanted to keep his newly adopted son as far away from his former lifestyle as possible. Therein lay the problem, because he had precious few things to teach him outside of said lifestyle. Kiritsugu was not a conventional Magus himself, so giving Shirou a chance at a more or less normal life couldn't hurt before he had to face all the things that Thaumaturgy entailed.

"Yes, that could be good. Old man Fujimura has a daughter too, maybe she can teach you something."

Despite his age Shirou was quite observant, eerily so even. He was sure that Kiritsugu was trying to pile his education on anybody else as much as possible, and it made the boy pause. Why? If Kiritsugu taught something that wouldn't be useful for his purpose to be sharp and wield himself to help others, then Shirou would simply discard it. Otherwise, it would help.

Admittedly, his thoughts were a bit simpler than that, what with him being a child and all, but the deeply ingrained desire wouldn't be denied. Since the fire he had seen many blades: mostly surgical tools and kitchenware. All of them had some purpose or another, and now that they resided inside the boy's mind, he could see them clearly in his dreams. They whispered of their experiences before they were recorded and of what they could become. The blades weren't unchanging and neither was he.

Falling asleep after the meal, Shirou focused on the only non-mundane object inside his mindscape: a golden sheath, brilliant like the sun. So bright, in fact, that it appeared to slowly bring clarity to that fog-filled world of his. It was difficult to tell after just a few days, but the boy was sure that he could glimpse just a bit more in his dreams now than before.

###

Fujimura Taiga wasn't one of those people with an overcomplicated outlook on life. She liked food, kendo, English, and teaching kids. She hated losing and seeing her precious people hurt. She wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. Her dad's yakuza rarely bothered her, and she had long since learned to go with the flow and simply enjoy things as they came her way.

She hadn't had much of a chance to bestow her would-be-teacher affections on anyone before this strange acquaintance of her father's moved into town along with his son. Kiritsugu and Shirou. She naturally gravitated towards them, as it was a chance to get some distance from the criminal background of her family, which she honestly had never liked. They were all nice and protective towards her, sure, but the ambition to help cute little children on their way to college one day didn't mix well with hurting people as a profession. So when Kiritsugu invited her to his new place in order to 'help his son acclimatize', Taiga jumped at the opportunity.

But the boy in front of her was weird. This Shirou had seemed kind of empty when she had talked to him before. As they were standing in the front yard, he looked lost. Lost, yet eager.

"I want to learn to fight with a sword," the child said with a deadpan expression on his face. Taiga thought he looked cute at that moment: all serious with those puffy cheeks of his and bright-red hair.

"Sure, Fujimura-sensei will help you. You'll start by running a hundred laps around the house to build up endurance!"

In all honesty, it was a line she had picked up out of a stupid manga or some such. Surprisingly enough, it helped stop the pestering from the small club of fans she'd gained at school with her known kendo prowess. When she suggested some crazy training regimen, even children understood Taiga had absolutely no idea what the hell she was doing and gave up on asking her for lessons.

Shirou nodded and set out at a jog without a moment's hesitation.

With a twitch in her brow Taiga understood that instead of a cute younger brother she had somehow got a mini-training maniac. Well, children were excitable like that. Surely, he would give up on the stupid idea of becoming some sort of modern samurai after a few days and they would be able to do something fun like shopping.

After two weeks Shirou still showed no sign of giving up.

###

When Kiritsugu got a bit better, he joined in training Shirou mostly to keep the crazy yakuza girl from killing the child with an insane physical regimen. Well, with Avalon inside the boy, that was unlikely, but even Taiga could catch on that Shirou's energy and endurance couldn't be explained by mere stubbornness and talent.

Though, to be perfectly honest with himself, Emiya wasn't sure that it was just Avalon. He watched as the boy trained, and his adopted son's Circuits showed signs of constant strain as if he kept trying to use Thaumaturgy but couldn't quite pull it off. Hell, with Shirou's obsessive tendencies that might have been exactly what was happening.

Most Magi needed to be pushed to realize their potential at this age. With Shirou it was the opposite: the boy needed to slow the hell down, or he would burn out long before puberty.

With the hope of refocusing his son's attention on something less physically dangerous, Kiritsugu started to teach the kid basic Od and Prana manipulation and the fundamentals of conceptual Mysteries, beginning with Reinforcement. He called on some of his remaining contacts to get a rudimentary library on the topic. Surely, there was nothing less likely to lead Shirou to anything dangerous, right?

If only he had known where that path would eventually lead.

Shirou was five and he dreamed of fog and blades.


	2. A Father's Responsibility

Author's Intro

Quite a bit of reaction for a prologue, thank you for the reviews and the kind words. I thought I would get the first serious chapter done before Christmas as a small early present to the fans of Fate/Stay Night who stop by and read this fic.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

 _Thoughts._

 _"Arias and other Mysteries."_

 ** _"Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."_**

I've revised this chapter and fixed the punctuation among other things.

As always, I remind you that I don't own Nasuverse or Fate/Stay Night. Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon do, and they are awesome. Consider reading 'Tsukihime' some day: it's like an older, less refined, and more gritty Fate.

Enjoy, full notes are at the end of the chapter.

A Father's Responsibility

School confused him, Shirou said. Teachers and other children were just too weird: not kind and brooding like his father, not hyperactive to the point of manic like Taiga, or aloof and kind of aggressive like old man Fujimura's crowd. All the important people in his life had some sort of goals or overarching ambitions which children and teachers in the first grade decidedly lacked.

Of course, Shirou had no way of knowing that human beings usually get their act together in their late teens and not right after learning how to read hiragana. Kiritsugu tried to explain, but it was met with limited success as his son had quite a bit of trouble with understanding people who were not like him. Which, pretty much, meant anybody who wasn't forged in the fiery hell of war.

Not like the boy was isolated, no: he enjoyed helping others with lessons and other stuff. But it was precisely because of his overwhelming desire to be helpful to others that Shirou couldn't get any true friends. He was strong and smart for his age, and other kids either idolized him or were suspicious of him. Ironically, it was the latter half that Shirou could probably benefit most from socializing with, because they were the children who had known some sort of hardship in their short lives to be naturally wary of him.

The Emiya family sat in the living room of their Japanese-style mansion. The father was enjoying one of rare October days with clear weather, sitting just outside and soaking up the autumn sun while chilly morning air dulled his pain somewhat. Shirou was practicing Structural Analysis.

" _Trace on_."

Hearing the words for the hundredth time the former Magus Killer shook his head; he couldn't really be surprised that his son would pick a personal mantra that let him become even more empty. Shirou had explained to him once that when he actualized Mysteries he imagined himself as a black blade, across which green lines of energy were being traced.

"Father?"

Outwardly the boy looked completely focused on the cup he was analyzing, but from his tone it was clear that Shirou had been bothered by something for a while.

"Yes, Shirou? You've improved, I see."

"Why do people hurt? Themselves and each other? It's simple not to hurt, so why do they?"

Kiritsugu pinched the bridge of his nose, collecting his thoughts. His son was bound to start asking this kind of questions sooner or later, but he had been hoping Shirou would start with something other than human nature and the perpetuation of suffering.

"Well… I'm not really an expert, but I think it's because humans simply want too many limited things... When you and another person both want something only one can have, there is conflict," he said. "We are emotional creatures, Shirou. Somebody hurts you, and it takes willpower not to hurt them back."

"I don't really understand. Why hurt them back? Why not just stop them from hurting you more or let them have what they want if it's so important to them?"

"Sometimes you need to hurt people in order to stop them from hurting others. Even if all you want to do is stop the pain around you."

Kiritsugu could only smile bitterly as this phrase pretty much summed up all his life up to the Holy Grail War. And look where it had led him to: dying of a curse, trying to truly save just one tiny soul.

The boy tilted his head in that peculiar thinking motion of his which, thankfully, became less robotic after two years. Finally, he nodded to himself.

"I sort of get it. If somebody wanted to hurt you, I'd hit them with my bokken. Hard."

Seeing Shirou's dead-serious expression Kiritsugu couldn't help but laugh.

"Yes, you would. Protecting what's important to you is… important. Even if it also hurts others."

"But having to hurt others for something you want? That's just stupid. You can simply want something else instead."

This time Kiritsugu didn't laugh. It had become clear to him long before that Shirou's only real desire was to find a way to be as useful as possible to the world around him, and it wasn't like said world would actively resist a desire like that. The wishes of most people were different: they hungered for material things and to lord over others. No wonder Shirou didn't really understand conflict. It just didn't make sense to him for anyone to want something else except living and cooking in peace and helping one another.

The cursed Magus could appreciate the irony, though: as incompetent as he was as a father, he was almost uniquely suited to raise Shirou. The boy was forged by the horrors of war, and war and suffering were two things Kiritsugu understood much better than he would have liked.

###

Another few months passed and winter came. Kiritsugu had been gone for some time spending his time in Europe and nearly freezing to death while yet again trying to get through the wards around Einzbern's ancestral home. It was a futile effort, of course, as even in his prime he would have had trouble with dismantling the defenses of one of the most powerful family of Magi in existence, and even if he somehow succeeded at that there was still the matter of dealing with Homunculi and their masters.

By the time he came back, the former assassin found out that his son had memorized most of the books he had on conceptual-based Mysteries, even if Shirou didn't really understand half of the material yet. At their first Thaumaturgy session after some brief Structural Grasping the boy attempted something else. Furrowing his brow, Shirou extended his right hand as if expecting something to appear in it.

" _Trace on._ "

There was a brief flash of Prana and a crack of electricity, and then Shirou was kneeling on the floor, grasping his head with both hands.

"Why doesn't it work…"

Kiritsugu had seen him try something similar before, but now he understood for the first time that his son was attempting some specific Mystery and wasn't just messing around with magical energies. He walked up to Shirou and offered a hand to help him get up, smiling kindly, if a little tiredly.

"Maybe I can help? Tell me, what are you trying here?"

The boy hesitated for a few moments, looking decidedly embarrassed, before sighing and answering. Kiritsugu couldn't help but smile at how funny it was to hear a child mimic an old man irritated with the exasperating ways of life.

"I'm trying to pull it out?"

"Pardon?"

Shirou looked at him as if his father had turned into an idiot.

"The kitchen knife. I don't know, there is like this place. In my head. There are all sorts of things there: knives and scalpels, and swords from the museum you took me to for my birthday. They seem kind of real, but I just can't draw them out. It's annoying."

Only years spent on the battlefield kept the Magus Killer from freezing up: Shirou's choice of words was awfully specific and reminded him of things that the boy simply couldn't come across in the entry-level books he had access too. After all, Kiritsugu had checked those for anything that could cause a Sealing Designation.

"Shirou, this is important," he said. "Tell me, what exactly are you trying to do?"

"Well, I sort of fill a Circuit in my arm with Od and reach into my mind…"

"Okay, okay."

Kiritsugu started rubbing the back of his head absent-mindedly, trying to stave off an oncoming migraine.

"I want you to do it again, just don't try to pull. Look at what you have in mind and then fill the air in front of your palm with energy. Try to shape the Mana you control into the shape of what you are imagining. Don't touch the image, just re-create it in the air. You should imagine the object as clearly as you can: materials, shape, everything you can, at once."

It was how he had Projection explained to him years ago, and it was pure luck that he still remembered it. Creating copies that shattered from the slightest impact to reveal nothing but emptiness inside—at best it could prove a distraction, but illusions were more useful for that. Not like you could create something large like a wall with Projection without expending huge amounts of Mana.

Shirou frowned again, stretching his arm forward, supporting it with his other hand, and spreading his fingers. The boy focused, this time enunciating the words forcefully.

" _Trace ON!_ "

He muttered something else under his breath but Kiritsugu couldn't quite make out the words.

If what was seen at his previous attempt could only be described as Mana manifesting and sizzling, now it seemed to connect. A flash of blue light briefly blinded Kiritsugu before he heard multiple clangs of something metal hitting the floor. As his eyes re-adjusted, he first saw a panting Shirou grinning widely at something and then—the floor.

The entire kitchen knife set lay there in a heap, looking as real as can be. Holding his breath, the Magus crouched and picked one up. It looked solid enough and even weighed as much as a real knife this size would. Kiritsugu grasped the handle firmly and hit the floor with the blade. He wasn't as strong as he was in the past, of course, but still enough to shatter a Projection.

Only it didn't shatter. The blade rang triumphantly through the shed they used for practice and vibrated in his hand, the illusion of a real knife complete.

"Can you make them disappear? You should feel energy going from you to them, try to cut it off."

Shirou looked confused for a moment as if he couldn't find the Mana stream, which also didn't make much sense. The drain should have been considerable, unless his Element or Origin had something to do with metals or blades or, perhaps, kitchenware? The migraine was in full swing now having completely overwhelmed Emiya's puny attempts at fighting it.

Luckily, the boy's face finally lighted up, he made a dismissing gesture, and the knives vanished in sparks of blue Mana. Kiritsugu sighed in relief: not seeing what the 7-year-old unqualified Magus had done in front of his eyes made it easier to distance himself from the sheer ridiculousness of it. Plus, it helped that Shirou looked happier than he probably had ever seen him.

"All right, all right… Let's go to the living room. I want you to tell me exactly what this place in your mind is like, and what types of objects end up there."

###

It took Kiritsugu a week to get all the proof he needed, double-check everything, and to make sure Shirou told him everything he knew. Now it was finally time to stop denying the truth: his son had a Reality Marble. His seven-year-old son was screwed up enough to have something similar to what centuries old Dead Apostles possessed.

How many known cases of a Magus having that sort of power were there during the whole history of mankind? Five? Six? How many more might have been hidden from the Association fearing being Sealed inside the Clock Tower? Another ten or so?

In any case, the phenomenon was rare enough for the one who had it to get slapped with a Sealing Designation faster than you could say 'Thaumaturgy' and, best case scenario, spend their life being experimented upon in the Tower. Unfortunately, with Shirou's propensity to help anyone who got hurt in front of him because of a misguided desire to be useful, the boy was bound to attract attention sooner rather than later. So avoiding the magical world completely was out of the question.

This meant Kiritsugu had to be smart, had to somehow set his son on a path where the budding Magus would either be able to conceal the extent of his abilities or be more valuable free rather than in a cell somewhere. And thinking of the kind of situations in which the boy could feasibly give the Association a better pay-off than being locked up within some research department left an unpleasant state in the former Magus Killer's mouth. He knew what those people were like, what they were capable of. And he knew that the only reason he himself stayed safe all those years was because his own abilities were really nothing special. Time manipulation was simply peculiar. Curious. An opportunity to study a Reality Marble in a controlled environment was potentially groundbreaking.

All those dark thoughts found Kiritsugu sitting in his room and drinking. Normally, he wasn't one to believe that alcohol could improve one's thought processes, but this was a special occasion: he simply wasn't sure he could handle his conclusions sober.

"And if that weren't enough…"

He was quite sure that both Shirou's Element and Origin had something to do with blades. The boy had been able to improve the Projection process minutes after learning it, for Root's sake! Starting with the intentions of the creator, continuing with material, manufacturing, and going all the way to experiences and skills of the ones who held the blades before. And the sheer quality of his knife projections was absurd: they were nothing like the empty shells they were supposed to be.

More than once Kiritsugu had to remind Shirou of the need to do homework and eat as the boy was spending more time than was healthy with a katana he recreated from another museum visit. He wondered just how deeply was the kinship between the blades and the one storing them in their own mind? Would Shirou be influenced by the swords? What if he saw something like one of Muramasa's legendary bloodthirsty katanas or, Root forbid, a true corrupted Mystic Code weapon?

The conclusion that Kiritsugu reached after a few more days of debating with himself about his future course of action was two-fold. First, he needed to refocus his attention away from the Einzbern castle, at least for a while. He had believed Shirou could live what passed for a safe life for a Magus (which wasn't much with the whole 'he who walks with death' thing), but now… He needed to be sure that the Grail War didn't leave anything behind except that scarred park. Checking the energy levels around the Greater Grail would take a week or two and alleviate most of his worries.

The other problem was far more profound, because he couldn't leave Shirou to grow up alone like he had intended. The Fujimura family would take care of the boy, but they couldn't provide him with the necessary education; the Tower was out of the question for obvious reasons, so that left a private teacher. Preferably, somebody who could instruct the boy on combat and Mystic Codes.

The former assassin had to pause in his numerations and jump to his feet as a cry suddenly rang out from outside. A cry in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Shirou's.

He had thought that after the revelations of the previous couple of weeks nothing could really surprise him anymore. He was obviously wrong as what he found inside the shed made his thoughts screech to a halt, and his body froze. Shirou was lying flat on his back inside the shed, appearing to be in troubled sleep, his breath shallow. The boy looked pale too, but that wasn't what had captured his attention. On his chest, grasped firmly by both arms, lay a golden sheath that radiated calm, soothing power. Avalon.

 _Well, I guess now we know whether his ability can reproduce Mysteries the object was imbued with._

Inside his own mind, Kiritusugu's voice had hysterical notes to it.

###

"So there was a war."

"Yes."

"That you joined."

"Yes."

"You thought it could end all the violence in the world."

"Yes."

"But instead it would end the world."

"Yes."

"So you tried to stop it, the fire happened, my home burned, and you got cursed."

"That pretty much sums it up."

They were sitting in the living room; Shirou was cooking all through Kiritsugu's story while the Magus Killer himself toyed with the Avalon replica in his hands. He found it helped dull the pain from his sickness even though the copy wasn't perfect, and without Arturia its full power remained locked. The idea that his son achieved in a week what most Magi would gladly give their entire lifetimes for would normally fill him with a sense of pride, but now he mostly felt tired and afraid of the outburst that was bound to follow any second.

Shirou returned with a huge bowl of some sort of very complicated boiled egg-based salad that was practically swimming in mayonnaise. The boy was going through a Russian cuisine phase, and it didn't bode well for anyone concerned about calories or cholesterol. Luckily for Kiritsugu, he was already dying way faster than lack of a proper diet could kill him.

Shirou said, "Okay."

"Okay?"

With the way the older Magus's eyes bulged, you would think there was some sort of Mystery involved. He had expected more than one word as a response, at the very least. Shirou just shrugged.

"Well… I don't remember anything before the fire, right? So I can't be really upset about losing it. And you just wanted to do good, to save the entire city from whatever that Grail thing is. So, okay. Does that golden thing—what did you call it—does Avalon help?"

"Yes, a bit."

"But it doesn't work properly without that Saber guy, right? Are there healing swords? Maybe I can make something better? Maybe, if something is strong enough?"

Being completely honest with himself, Kiritsugu had to admit that it wasn't as much that the curse of the Grail couldn't be resisted in any way, but rather that he believed he deserved to die for the life he had led. Sure, all the killing had seemed justified at the moment, but what sort of impact had it made? The world seemed the same, and that fact hung over his soul truer than an executioner's axe.

Still, even if he himself couldn't and shouldn't be saved, maybe it was possible to delay the symptoms enough to do what he could for Shirou's future.

"Like living with AIDS," said Kiritsugu.

"What's that?"

"An incurable sickness that makes other illnesses worse; they'll teach you about it in school."

Not like he was going to live long enough to have the dreaded 'talk' with his son.

Shirou said, "Okay, but what does the curse make worse? Isn't it bad on its own?"

"Well… I admit, bad comparison. But I promise to think of something that might help me stay alive for a little while longer."

Shirou nodded silently, and they went back to eating mayonnaise, boiled eggs, meat and vegetables that crazy people across the sea called a salad.

###

It was winter and London was as dark, dank, and drab in the evenings as Kiritsugu remembered. It was a façade, of course, one that he could easily see through. With the amount of Mysteries being performed in the city, the only thing that kept it from being regularly infested by Dead Apostles and escaped experiments was the impressive number of Enforcers going in and out of the Tower on a daily basis and the vice-director's personal undead-hunting Brigade.

Still, the city was in a permanent state of clean-up, memory wipes, and daily renegotiated compromise between different factions and families. The fact that it still stood was a testament to human ability to persevere through any sort of chaos. Persevere and move forward.

The Magus Killer found himself entering a small café, hidden in an obscure off-shoot of a gloomy alley that itself spawned from a rarely used street. As he crossed the threshold, there was the familiar tingle of a bounded field activating and a more obvious metal detector at the entrance.

 _No matter, not like I can use much of anything that would trigger these in my state._

The proprietor was an old acquaintance, a bald Irish man called Rob: in his forties with small, deep, dark eyes and lanky constitution.

Nobody reacted much when Kiritsugu entered the establishment. People didn't come here to be approached without invitation and extended the same courtesy to others through unspoken agreement. When the Magus got close to the bar, Rob poured a half-full glass of whiskey and put it in front of Emiya with a clank.

"Good to see you alive and kicking," said Rob. "When I didn't hear from you, I assumed the job got to you."

 _It did._

"Well, I'm more sturdy than I look."

"Clearly. He is waiting for you in booth number two. Whatever you do, don't walk into the third one. Family quarrel."

One of the reasons this particular watering hole was favored by Thaumaturgy practitioners seeking some degree of privacy was that it had six booths in a back room, fully sectioned off by one-way mirrors and sporting additional bounded fields that kept all sound inside. He knocked and one of the mirrors slid open.

Kiritsugu found himself staring at a seven-inch ceramic knife pointed at him. Prana seemed to radiate off the blade sporting several hastily scratched runes. Ignoring the blade completely, the former assassin looked into the eyes of the man holding it and walked inside.

"You've grown, Waver."

Said Magus was clad in a lot more expensive (and obviously enchanted) clothes than the last time they met and looked quite different with his obsidian-black hair now falling below his shoulders. Velvet glowered at Kiritsugu for a moment before sighing, dissipating the Mana coating his blade, and putting it away. He then sat down on a sofa on one side of the small table in the middle of the booth and gestured Emiya to the other one.

"And you've looked better, Kiritsugu, since we are on a first-name basis now for some reason. While I appreciate that you didn't call me out here for an ambush, why did you call me? 'Grail-related', you said."

Kiritsugu settled comfortably on the soft sofa and took a sip of whiskey.

"The Grail War is returning to Fuyuki," he said. "In five to ten years, depending on how quickly it gathers energy. The whole system is out of balance, so it's impossible to be more accurate."

Silence fell upon the booth as Velvet froze solid. After a few seconds the younger man reached into his inner pocket with a very precise, almost mechanical motion and took out a string of amber prayer beads. Slow, rhythmic clacking of tiny marbles hitting each other was the only sound as he fiddled with them. Finally, Waver spoke.

"You are sure."

It wasn't a question, but Kiritsugu decided to answer anyway.

"I checked the temple above the Greater Grail. There is enough Mana there to summon more than half the Servants already, I think. Probably, because no wish got fulfilled, the energy couldn't go anywhere. I hoped that Saber had destroyed it all with Excalibur, but…"

Waver shuddered and said, "I heard there is a cursed park now in Fuyuki where the last battle took place."

"Yes… Let's just say that you don't want the Grail activating," he said. "Ever. Again. Anywhere. The system is corrupted beyond all hope of salvage. I can tell you the whole story later."

"Why not destroy it, then? Or tell one of the founding families? Or the Association?"

"It is tied into Ley Lines that run below half the city. If it is destroyed, optimistically speaking, it might cause those to turn into seismic fault lines and then bring everything down in a massive earthquake. Pessimistically… Imagine all the energies of all the Servants, corrupted, raining down on everything, turning everyone into Undead. Or just making one immense monster."

The younger Magus shuddered, recalling the Caster of their war and the thing that man had summoned. And the extreme force that had been used to put it down and that wouldn't be readily available, should it happen again as Archer was long gone. Not that he wanted to ever rely on the King of Heroes again.

"Not a pretty picture, right?" Kiritsugu said. "As for sharing the information, the taint is pretty much impossible to detect while the Grail is passively gathering Mana. It manifests its nature only when the Mystery is actualized, and then you already have seven super-powered entities running around a city making any clean-up at that point… difficult. Plus, some of the participants simply may not care about the sacrifice that the Grail requires now. They may not care about humanity, just about their own wishes. No, this is not an option. What I am suggesting is preparing a contingency."

Waver remembered the old Kiritsugu, the emotionless, perfectly efficient killer. The man before him was vastly different even if he tried to use the same words as that automaton-like assassin. This man was obviously broken, yet somehow stronger.

"Contingency?"

"Let me tell you about my son…"

Half an hour later Kiritsugu finished his story and Waver got them a full bottle of cognac because discussing what they were talking about while only tipsy was simply impossible.

"So let me get this straight," Waver said. "By sheer goddamn coincidence you happened to save and adopt a natural first-generation Magus who is an Incarnation and has a Root-damn-it Reality Marble inside. One that is able to copy any weapons and, potentially, some other objects down to their Mysteries and skill they were wielded with in the past?"

"Pretty much."

"I'll believe it when I see it… Is what I'd like to say but I guess it is simply impossible to make this shit up. Let's say I believe you, just for a minute. Why are you sure I won't run to one of Barthomeloi's dogs with this?"

"Wouldn't say I'm sure, but I hope you are one of the people in here who would value the lives of a small city more than your career. And because if you help take care of Shirou after I'm gone, you will have access to whatever Mysteries and theories you can develop with him."

"So, some access to some ephemeral Mysteries forty years in the future? Have you even heard of the concept of selling an offer?"

"No, not that long. I am dying, Velvet. Even with certain… methods for extension I'm looking into, I won't be here for more than a couple years. I don't think it will be more than five; three to four is what I hope for."

"You know, throwing the 'dying wish' card on the table isn't really fair."

Kiritsugu simply shrugged and waited while Waver thought.

The younger Magus said, "I really don't want to throw the kid under the bus after what he's been through; he is probably the best bet for ending the Grail War once and for all if we can only play the cards right… Yes, this could work… but…"

During the War Velvet had shown himself to be an decent Magus whose exceptional strength lay not in raw Mysteries but in analysis and planning. Now the brain that had once easily found the Caster's base was completely focused on preventing the atrocities he had witnessed from happening again.

"Five to ten years… too little. Unless… Some sort of powerbase? Any weapon?" his eyes flashed to Kiritsugu, indicating that the last question wasn't rhetorical.

The older Magus nodded.

"Number of Circuits? Energy requirements?"

"Twenty seven. Still mastering their use but they will probably peak at twenty to twenty five units each."

Waver whistled, impressed.

Kiritsugu said, "As for requirements. He can project a non-weapons Noble Phantasm and not pass out now."

"That sounds awfully specific."

"Am I guessing right that you are in?"

"What does it look like, Kiritsugu, refusal? Now tell me what I need to know to formulate a proper plan here. Obviously you have thought to the 'I die, he trains and kicks ass' point, let me try to flesh it out a bit," the younger Magus said, glaring at his older counterpart.

"Avalon. He can project Avalon. You can guess what the rank of the thing is. I'm not very good with analysis anymore but it seems like his version is about B-level right now. Weapons come easier to him. Blades are the easiest, I haven't seen him tire with those at all but it's not like there is something powerful enough lying around my house to really test his limits."

Again Waver fell silent, lost in his own thoughts for what seemed to Kiritsugu like an hour. The younger man alternatively sipped his drink, clicked his prayer beads, rubbed his temples, and, overall, seemed to almost physically push his thoughts into higher gear with every second. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh.

"Okay, this, as unbelievable as it sounds, this can work. Just… we need somebody else," he said looking at the other man and checking for his reaction.

"No one from the Tower. Better yet, no one actively involved with the Association and someone I can trust. That's a tall order if I've heard one, Waver."

"You need somebody to take Shirou as an apprentice, preferably right now. Someone who can move into Fuyuki, who doesn't have close ties to any faction, and someone like a warrior smith. Someone not on active duty and who would be more interesting in observing and shaping your son than selling him out. And preferably someone who will be able to provide some extent of protection from the Magus society if the need arises. Do you see who I'm hinting here?"

Kiritsugu's eyes widened somewhere around the middle of the speech.

"No, not him. I dealt with him once. That man will drive us all insane. The only reason why he doesn't have a Sealing Designation is because he is far too eccentric to work with anybody and far too valuable to simply dissect in some lab somewhere."

"What choice do you have? Discretion, skill, experience? He has it all, even if he is impossible to control."

Kiritsugu fell silent. If only he had some other choice.

###

When the bell rang Shirou darted toward the door as if the house had caught on fire. Living in the huge home by himself was boring, the school didn't help much, and Taiga was, well, Taiga. His father had been gone for two weeks after saying he was going to get some help with their sleuth of problems, and that it would take five or six days. That was nothing new, and Shirou wasn't exactly angry, he just wanted to show off. During the last two weeks he had learned how to impose the basic Concept of Movement on the blades he projected, making them shoot through the air in some direction instead of just appearing and falling. It was so cool. Except when the knives and swords made holes in the walls which happened disturbingly often. Or when they near skewered him and he had to dismiss them on the fly. Still, when that didn't happen, it was beyond cool!

But when he opened the door, Shirou just stopped. Sure, his father was there, but so was the strangest man he had ever seen.

Standing over six feet, wearing a formal grass-pattern kimono for some reason, with a freaking bright-red pin sticking out of a knot the man had tied his hair into. And where those geta on his feet? Yeah, definitely geta. Who the hell wore wooden sandals outside a culture festival?

The entire thing was exacerbated by the way the man moved: with jerking, rapid gestures, as if there was absolutely no filter between his thoughts and muscles.

He instantly focused on Shirou and bent down, bringing his face uncomfortably close to the boy; squinted his disturbingly dark-blue eyes, and spoke in a clipped thick German accent.

"That him? The One Who Will Save Us All?"

Kiritsugu groaned. Shirou didn't think a sound could hold this much exasperation without bursting.

"Come on, can you be serious for just one damn moment? Yes, that's Shirou. Shirou, this is... "

"Hi, Emiya-kun. My name is Dietrich Gladstone. When your father kicks the bucket, I'll be your dad and help you learn to fight and teach you about Mysteries and things. Now, where is my room?"

And with these words the man strode inside right past the boy. Shirou just stood there, gaping.

"What? What was that?"

Kiritsugu looked as if he was sincerely regretting all the choices he had made up to this point in his life. He didn't answer; instead, a lean man with long black hair stepped out from behind Kiritsugu.

"Hello, I'm Waver Velvet, nice to meet you, Shirou. I believe your father told you about me? That was Dietrich, a Mystic Code crafter. He's really good but… difficult. Active for about twenty years now, mostly self-taught, positively brilliant. He has unique Circuits, pretty much restricting his abilities to channeling any Mysteries through solid objects suited to conducting Mana. Crazy smart, emphasis on crazy. Learned Japanese by himself, though, and watched way too much historical drama, hence the weird speech."

Shirou simply blinked.

"Father? What's going on?"

Chapter end notes

Now that we have the first real chapter, a couple of words about this story.

I expect this to be about twelve chapters in total and not much more as I'd like to finish this fanfic in a year or sooner (the fairly optimistic estimation is half a year but we'll see). It might grow into something larger if I get really caught up in the story, though. Still, I want to have a finished story in a reasonable amount of time, rather than create a years-spanning monster.

The primary focus will be on Shirou's personal road to becoming awesome while staying sane-ish and me playing with the Nasuverse in order for said awesomeness to occur without making the protagonist ITSANELDERGODRUNFORYOURLIVESSS! or breaking Kinoko's metaphysics board across my knee. The main focus will be on Shirou basically being a weapon but trying to learn to be a decent person too.

Chapter credits.

Ideas I got from ThirdFang and used in this chapter: just as in 'From Fake Dreams', Shirou needs a liaison with the Tower in this story. He is simply too interesting as a test subject to not get locked up as soon as he attracts the attention without a considerable amount of scheming and some political pull on somebody's part. As far as I know, the only morally decent Association Magus Kiritsugu knows in canon is Waver. So I drafted him into looking out for the boy in exchange for being able to use the data the whole plan can provide for his own academic exploits and plain getting a chance to right some of the wrongs that he sort of helped occur by participating in the previous War.

Again, in order to prepare Shirou for the war (that Kiritsugu now knows is coming sooner rather than later), he needs to be trained in advance. Sirius McGinty is awesome, but he belongs to ThirdFang, body and soul, plus I have my own designs on how best to handle Shirou's development up to First Night. This is where the Dietrich comes in, and I hope you will find him interesting to read.

Tohsaka and Sakura will be joining the fun in the next chapter (hopefully I will publish it in a couple weeks). Stay tuned and please review. It's feedback from readers that can stop a story from descending into complete boredom.


	3. Bonds of Solitude

Author's intro

I continue to be awed by the interest people express in this story. It's amazing to mess with one of your favorite fantasy worlds and find out that what you are doing is also fun for others.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

 _Thoughts._

 _"_ _Arias and other Mysteries."_

 ** _"_** ** _Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."_**

I have read up on English punctuation but there are probably still more commas than there should be. So, as always, I apologize for wonky Slavic-style punctuation.

Enjoy, full notes at the end of the chapter.

Bonds of Solitude

Even Shirou could understand why people tended to avoid his new teacher whenever possible. Some of his more frequent aphorisms included:

"Sleep? Who needs sleep?"

"With great power comes… something. I forget."

And his latest, "Mr. Darcy, oh, who wouldn't I kill to be you…"

Really, the fact that the man started his acquaintance with Jane Austen with a Japanese translation of 'Pride and Prejudice' was evidence enough as to how his mind worked. Need to improve mediocre language skills? Screw textbooks and formal courses, let's go right into difficult as hell classics. This approach was something he also used without reservation when it came to Shirou's education.

If the man had been simply bonkers, it would be far less off-putting than the truth he shared with Shirou and Kiritsugu during one of his very few moments of complete seriousness.

"Magi are pussies. 'He who walks with death', my ass. Sure the stuck-ups at the Clock Tower will kill for a good Mystery, sometimes even themselves, but where is the real sacrifice?"

He leaned over the table, peering into Shirou's eyes.

"Remember, boy. It is not lives, it is not morals, it is not even Gaia that hold up back. It is what is in here," he tapped the left temple. "You try critiquing someone's methodology or whatever totally useless in practice direction of research their family wasted generations on and then see what happens."

Dietrich slammed his palm on the table, making the cutlery quiver and ring.

"Pussies, the lot of them! Except the Enforcers and a couple people, I say. Remember this, boy, your mind, even that mindscape, that Reality Marble of yours are all just tools. Look at me, I always try to tweak my personality to get my job done better. What will your job be?"

That conversation explained a lot about the mental stability of the German Magus—always on the edge of a full-blown manic episode l. Shirou wanted to try and tweak his mind into something more… balanced instead. Even to such a young and warped boy, total devotion to one goal didn't look pretty. Between his father who tried to be a hero and ended up doubting his entire way of life and the crazy teacher who would routinely talk to the things he made in his Workshop he could see why Magi had families and stuff.

It was to avoid being put down like rabid dogs due to going insane. Not like the Association had a mental institution with experienced therapists somewhere.

###

They met when he was eight. He was walking through the city doing an assignment from his teacher using Structural Analysis and its more cursory analogue Structural Grasping on everything he could find. She was lying in a fetal position on the ground contemplating how pretty her blood looked mixing with dirt on the pavement. She didn't pay much attention to the three boys kicking her. She knew they wouldn't kill her. After all, it wasn't the first time. Then he noticed her.

Compassion wasn't really Shirou's bread and butter but constantly seeking to do something good was. And as he learned from his father, opportunities to do real unambiguous good were few and far between. So when he saw a somewhat sickly-looking girl with blue hair being beat upon he jumped at the opportunity.

Which was a tremendously stupid idea, he thought in retrospect. After all, not like he had extensive unarmed training. A good hit at the tallest of the boys was all he got before the bullies noticed him and switched targets. The girl was probably regular entertainment and they didn't really hit to do harm, only to make her hurt and react at least in some way. The boy who interfered got different treatment as he was aiming to interrupt their fun.

After a few hits Shirou was also down now lying next to the girl and looking into her empty eyes in which the barest flicker of curiosity was now present.

"Why… why are you so sad?" he managed to squeeze in between receiving kicks.

"Why are you smiling?" she retorted, somewhat bewildered.

"Because… I did something good… today."

The boys in the meantime grew more and more pissed off. Kicking the girl wasn't that much fun, so they might have gotten bored with her and moved on to somebody else, but Shirou turned out to be worse. Nothing is more infuriating for someone seeking to place themselves on a pedestal by putting somebody else down than being ignored by said somebody. And Shirou didn't just ignore them: thinking that he couldn't do anything about them, he had the gall to try and talk through the kicks to somehow use the time for something productive. This made them even more livid.

"Sato, my foot's starting to hurt…"

One of the boys, a bit shorter than the other two, took a step back. He then started looking for something to pick up and hit Shirou with.

Then the he saw a piece of discarded steel pipe being offered to him and reached for it absent-mindedly.

This was the last thing he was able to recall later. By this point Shirou had almost passed out, and the only one able to bear witness to what was happening was the prone girl.

The man who came to their rescue was strange and kind of scary, even to her. Where she was empty because far too much had been done to her at too young an age, he seemed more like someone who was born empty or perhaps got turned into some sort of robot at some point. Dark spiky hair, stubble, somewhat unkempt clothes; grey eyes without expression on a worn middle-aged face.

He didn't talk, didn't intimidate, and didn't treat the bullies as children.

He knocked the smaller boy out with the very same pipe he had offered. Without missing a beat, the man fell into a well-practiced low stance and disabled the other two delinquents with a merciless punch to one's temple and a kick to another's chest. The boy flew into a wall and slid down after a sickening crunch. Everything took less than a second.

Looking as if he had just had a calming walk, the man took out a handkerchief, wiped the pipe clean and set it on the ground. Then he walked up to her.

He eyed the boy who had come to her rescue before turning his gaze to the girl. Just like that his appearance turned from completely emotionless to tired and quite warm.

"Hello there, little girl. I'm Kiritsugu Emiya. And this selfless idiot is my son, Shirou."

She stared. He sighed.

"It's polite to give your name to people who save you from assault."

It was weird, thinking about manners while lying on the ground seeing as much ground as sky.

"Sakura. Sakura Matou."

If Kiritsugu knew her family, he didn't show it.

"Can you walk?"

Sakura paused for a moment to evaluate the damage. After a few moments passed, she nodded.

"Okay then. I'll pick him up, you pick yourself up, and we'll go to my home and get you both cleaned up. We'll call your parents later."

Sakura had been told not to trust strangers, but this man did save her from a more serious beating than the one she got. And some tiny part of her hoped that he would turn out to be a serial killer. He could have actually had nothing to do with the boy lying near her. He could have simply followed him into the alley in search of a victim. And now he would get two for the price of one.

Inwardly the girl cringed at how easy it was to get other people wrapped up in the fantasy of her pain finally ending. The boy did nothing to deserve it, so she made an effort to be polite and stood up. After some swaying on her feet she was ready to go. Or at least wobble in a predetermined direction.

"Thank you, Mr. Emiya."

"Please, Kiritsugu is fine. I hope you stick around to help explain to my son why you are supposed to call for help in situations like these. And learn that lesson yourself."

And they were off, leaving behind three unconscious injured children.

###

Before that day Sakura thought the Matou family was the epitome of 'screwed up'. Because of her past the word 'kind' was very close to 'normal' in her mind. Or at least 'not sadistic'. But the Emiya household turned out to be something completely different.

She tensed for a moment when they crossed the bounded field around the house, recognizing the same sensation she felt every day.

"SHIROU! KIRITSUGU, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CUTE LITTLE BROTHER?"

The blur that shot out of the front door to greet them somehow resembled a bright brown-haired meteor, which Kiritsugu promptly sidestepped.

"Not now, Taiga, can't you see I'm carrying him? Here you go."

And then the treacherous old man put Sakura between himself and the brown-haired menace. The girl looked like she was about to throw a tantrum before her eyes honed on the obstacle. The look in her eyes made Sakura afraid for the first time in a very long while.

"UWA! So cute! What's your name? I'm Taiga Fujimura, you can call me Fujimura-senpai! How did you meet Shirou? Are you Shirou's girl? Am I going to have a YOUNGER SISTER? So cute…"

Again Sakura was tempted to run and again any choice was denied her as the girl was swept up into a hug and hauled inside. That moment she realized that the Emiya people overcompensated for their lack of sadism with overabundance of insanity.

###

When Shirou came to, he was lying on a futon in the middle of the living room. His head was throbbing dully and even a shallow breath brought sharp pain. The young Magus opened his eyes.

In hindsight, that might not have been the best idea as the sight of a hazy, swimming room brought an attack of nausea. He moved to get up but found himself being held down by a small, warm hand. There wasn't much strength in it, but what was clearly broken ribs helped make him lie back down.

The hand stayed for a few moments before tentatively lifting off his bare chest.

"Emiya-senpai?"

 _Ah, yes, there was a girl._

Instead of forcing himself to move Shirou focused on the vague blob from which the voice was coming. He didn't think she had been beaten quite that badly, so he decided to blink. After a few seconds the familiar ceiling and walls became sharper, and he could now see the girl he had spectacularly failed to rescue.

He said, "My father is going to kill me for almost dying because of something so stupid."

The girl chuckled and then started as if the sound of her own laugh disturbed her somehow.

She said, "He was going to, but he is busy with Gladstone-san. He is trying to yell your dad to death for not teaching you better." She took a long look at him. "Your family is weird. I'm Matou Sakura. Pleased to meet you."

Shirou snorted. Weird? Oh no, a former assassin, a yakuza aiming to become a teacher, and a Magus, hermit, and blacksmith who also happened to be his teacher? Even he realized that went far beyond simply weird, and that was without mentioning his little world of blades. He had just learned to roll with it and hope for the best.

"Nice to meet you, Sakura. So, you have a normal family?"

"Not really, no."

"Too bad. I kind of hoped I could get a normal friend."

Sakura's shoulders sunk, and Shirou tried to rub the back of his neck in embarrassment. It didn't go well as his arms weren't in the best possible condition.

"Not normal is good too." He hastily added. "I don't really have friends. Normal or not."

Sakura intensely stared at Shirou for some reason and blushed a little.

"Are you okay, do you have a fever?"

The girl was just starting to stammer something incomprehensible when a very angry Dietrich stomped into the room, followed by a sulking and very tired-looking Kiritsugu.

"You. You have a lot to do in life, no?" he asked, his German accent shining through more than usual. "How will you do this if some boy beats you to death when you are eight, huh? And you," he said stabbing the finger of judgement at Sakura. "You are a Matou, right? Your family is loaded, right? Why, why, for all that's good, fluffy, and explosive did you go into that alley?" He turned on Kiritsugu. "And you. We aren't done."

Dietrich rubbed his temples with an exasperated sigh, trying to calm down.

Kiritsugu knelt by his son's side after giving Sakura an apologetic shrug and checked the extent of Shirou's injuries. After a couple muffled yelps from the boy he seemed satisfied.

"We should call your home, Sakura. Washing up really helped as did the make-up Taiga used on you." His kind and tired expression turned dead serious. "Find something you can look forward to everyday. And come visit us some time, without the bruises."

###

Once Sakura was safely back at home, Dietrich was finally able to finish healing the boy and let Shirou rest. He had earlier prepared a number of blades with healing Mysteries. The boy was instantly able to reproduce them for Kiritsugu's sake, and that gave Dietrich more time. Even after promising he'd raise the child the German Magus still had no idea how to be a parent. Not that Kiritsugu did a much better job: surprisingly, the adult of the house in most situations was the boy himself. Even the crazy yakuza girl took reins more often than the retired assassin.

The day after the whole saving maidens in distress fiasco they were finally done with the very basic lessons on self-hypnotism, Prana, Od, and splitting the power of Mysteries between several practitioners. His pupil had great memory and exceptional discipline for a young child, which made things easier. But his age combined with the state of his psyche was a problem.

Shirou was sitting in front of a low table, pen in hand and notebook before him while his teacher shifted frantically through an endless-seeming stack of chaotic notes scrawled in jagged handwriting. Dietrich did his best to focus when teaching, but keeping track of his own thought processes was always a challenge.

"All right, we have made some headway. Despite the language. I can't wait until you start speaking German fluently… So, right, it's all covered in the books, but you are an Incarnation so we will go over it together."

He turned to the blackboard and drew a stickman. Then added a frilly looking dress and a tommy-gun. Continuing, Dietrich drew two arrows from the man: one from the body, the other from the head. The top arrow got signed 'ELEMENTAL AFFINITY', the bottom one, 'ORIGIN'.

"This is super-important. All things have an Origin, a sort of purpose imprinted when they appear in this world or any other. A dog, for example, may have an Origin of protection or hunting or some such but we won't focus on that." Research into animal Origins wasn't something you talked about with kids around. "What is important is that humans have freedom of choice. This is why in most people the Origin is asleep: it's like a far-off impulse lightly pushing them, but they can choose a different path." Dietrich raised a finger to emphasize his next point. "Now, when you are a Magus it gets tricky. Your Origin defines the nature of your spells and sometimes lets you perform unique Mysteries like your father's Circuit-fusing gun."

The instructor actually shuddered at that. When Kiritsugu explained to him his preferred way of disposing of powerful casters, the German Magus ended up embarrassing himself by losing control and going into a rant about how unacceptable soul mutilation was as a combat method. The assassin was polite enough to listen tiredly before nodding off into exhausted sleep.

"The thing is, Origin is this driving force, yes? This is why when you grow more attuned to it, it gets harder and harder to do things that go against it. Example! Your Father's Origin is dual: Severing and Binding, right? And he has devoted his entire life to the point of losing everything except you to remaking the world into something without violence."

He was expecting the boy to be uncomfortable or ask about what exactly his Father had lost but Shirou was ever the practical one.

"What is your Origin, sensei? Do you resist it like you are teaching me?"

Dietrich couldn't help but chuckle.

"Resist? No, no, I'm not teaching you that. You can be an uber-cool Magus just like me or your dad if you use such Mysteries. No, what I'm saying is that you need to understand that when you give in, you become… not exactly right in the head, to be honest," he said, fidgeting. This part wasn't easy to explain. "A lot of second-guessing or someone sane to check your choices nearby is needed if your Origin is something unsafe, like yours."

The blond haired Magus puffed out his chest proudly.

"Now, my Origin is totally safe. It is 'Inscription', so I have this compulsion to leave a mark upon the world. It's what makes me such a good Mystic Code crafter. Wouldn't change it for the world." His face exploded into an overenthusiastic grin. "Which brings us to the second part. An Element is not your own nature but something your soul leans to in the outside world. You can have several; it's a lot less rare than your dad's Dual Origin. And while Origins can be pretty much anything, like, say, Comfort or Friction, Elements are normally the four usual ones plus Ether." While Shirou wrote everything down, he expanded a bit upon the explanation. "The four are pretty much self-explanatory and Ether is also easy: it deals with purely abstract Mysteries like Conceptual Mysteries. Also, anything without a physical body and channeling pure Prana."

The boy was staring at him, transfixed, and Dietrich flicked him on the forehead.

"Don't just gawk! Write, write this down. I may finally get a decent set of notes after this… Anyway. Origin and Element determine what kind of Mysteries you can get really good at, if you have enough Circuits in you. Which you do, by the way." He gave patted the boy on the head. "I myself am a bit like you: I am really, really bad at conventional Mysteries; throwing a small ball of fire leaves me drained. But!" Dietrich raised a finger for emphasis. "I memorize and design super-complex Mystic Codes easily and have a really easy time channeling non-elemental Prana through them. Here, try putting energy into this".

The teacher pulled a small black stick out of a pocket. Seven inches long and one in diameter, it glimmered slightly in bland light of the fluorescent lamps above. Shirou instantly knew that this wasn't a weapon as he actually had to perform Structural Analysis to understand what it did. What it had inside was a simple Mystery that transformed Prana into some other kind of energy. Concentrating, he inhaled and used the mantra he came up with for channeling Mana.

 _"_ _Overflow."_

As he said the words his Circuits flared into life, and the rod shook slightly. A blade of flame, as if from a blowtorch, extended another seven inches from the tip. Shirou felt that the strain on his reserves was much stronger than when he used Mystic Codes that were weapons.

"Right, right, very impressive. Cut the flow, please. Good. Now give it here."

Dietrich took the Code, focused and said his own general purpose one-word Aria.

 _"_ _Ström!"_

What came out this time could best be described as a foot and a half lightsaber that rang triumphantly with crackling energy. After a few seconds of grinning and showing off, Dietrich retracted the white flame blade.

"Don't feel any drain at all. Now, on to your case. You are an Incarnation, which means that you were so in tune with your Origin right from the point of your creation that it also became your Elemental Affinity." Dietrich drew a loop, connecting the Origin and Element on the blackboard. "Because of this you need to be really careful not to forget you are human. Don't want you running around screaming 'I'm a blade! Give me a sheath or something to cut!'" Dietrich waved his arms around wildly and panted with his tongue out, doing his best to impress the importance of not being crazy on the boy. "Most men are kind of like that though… Anyway, there are also advantages! See, I just channeled Mana into a Mystic Code I made with my Origin, and the efficiency was through the roof! As an Incarnation you can do something even more incredible! You can actually Project or, as I've nicknamed your way of doing it, Trace weapons that have more Prana in them than you do!"

Shirou blinked. Maybe he needed to tone down the yelling and the enthusiasm.

 _Nah, I'm doing great._

"You didn't realize? Does Avalon ring a bell?" He tapped Shirou's forehead. "Sure, yours is about B-rank but it's still way more powerful than you. It's like I'm teaching an eight-year-old! Which I am. Damn." He scratched the back of his head. "Anyway, you can do only one thing, but you can do it with efficiency of over one hundred percent! Conservation of energy goes out the window," Dietrich mimed throwing a rock. "And don't ask how or why. It's been said that an Incarnation doesn't so much shape their own Od and surrounding Prana into a Mystery as summon the finished Mystery from an abstract realm in tune with their Origin." He spun a finger around his temple. "Crazy theory. Not important for practical purposes—moving on, now where was I?"

Dietrich snapped his fingers.

"Ah, yes. Even with your situation you can still do anything non-elemental: Runes, Formalcraft, basic material transmutation, the works. Also Structural Analysis, Tracing, and there is Alteration which is imposing an abstract concept on an existing object without damaging it."

"Sensei, how does that work? Can I learn it?"

"Again, really underrated area of Magecraft. Thankfully for you, I'm an expert. You just need to understand the object you are Altering intimately and be sure the concept isn't simply a bunch of made up words but something you can impose upon a material object. Example!"

Dietrich exploded with happiness whenever an example was needed.

"You can take a heavy book and impose 'Projectile' upon it. That is, if you know enough about how books are made and are very, very familiar with projectile weapons: how they are made, fired, everything." He drew a book and an arrow on the blackboard. "The pages will probably fuse, and the whole thing will flatten into a disk. Needs testing, by the way…" He wrote this down on one of his notes. "But even if you have been making books your whole life and are the best programmer on Earth you won't be able to make a book 'Programmable'." Dietrich tried to draw a computer on the blackboard but his artistic talents didn't reach beyond rectangles and lines. "It isn't a simple idea that can be imposed upon an object this way, it just doesn't make sense. This example is basic, but the principle stands: never try new alterations outside of a Workshop."

He stopped for a few moments as if considering whether he should really say the next part.

"This is where you are also unfairly lucky, by the way. As long as the property you are looking for was a part of one of the blades in your mind, you should be able to Alter any other blade with it." Dietrich snapped his fingers. "I know what we need! I'll be showing you any weapons I make for sale! It should help you learn to do more stuff."

By this point Shirou's head was swimming from all the possibilities, and they had to stop.

###

Kiritsugu and Dietrich were sitting on the veranda in matching rocking chairs while the children reveled in chaos inside. The weird chemistry between Shirou, Sakura and Taiga was, putting it mildly, ridiculous. A girl who had been damaged far beyond what most Magi suffered during their entire lives; a boy re-forged at the age of five; a boundless fountain of energy strengthened by her love for children and all things cute. They had no right to mesh together as well as they did.

Taiga was the type to dote, but it was probably Shirou's attitude that attracted the Matou heir to their group. The boy was twisted enough himself not to notice how peculiar Sakura's mannerisms were. Pretending anything inappropriate doesn't exist is customary in Japanese culture, because if you acknowledge the dirt you get stained by it. A weird concept for a westerner such as Dietrich to understand, but even he recognized how convenient such denial could be for normal people. And how lonely and depressing lack of companionship could be for those who were abnormal and thus became invisible. At least, Shirou had a caring family. Both Kiritsugu and Dietrich seriously doubted that was the case with Sakura.

Still, it wasn't their problem, so they sat outside soaking up the sun and drank tea. The former Magus Killer had a warm coat and a replica of Avalon under it—the warmth helped with the pain. Dietrich was simply being lazy.

"You know, I think I got swindled by you, you old Magus-killing fox. I should have researched the previous Grail War more before I entered into our little deal."

Kiritsugu gave a dry laugh.

"Don't lie to yourself, Dietrich. A chance to study and shape an Incarnation? A chance to help him become someone able to give the Spirits of legendary warriors a fight? You wouldn't say no even if I told you everything upfront, including what the previous War's Caster was like."

A muted roar sounded from inside as the Tiger of Fuyuki presumably found out exactly how long cooking the dinner would take. This was immediately followed by barely audible sounds of Sakura trying to placate the fearsome beast.

"Yes, but I could have squeezed better conditions out of the agreement. Included dental or something, I don't know."

Kiritsugu remained silent for a few minutes before sighing.

"Out with it, Dietrich, I don't have the energy for games in me anymore."

Gladstone snorted:

"You know the thing that gets me really worried about this whole mess? When I got to Fuyuki, it just felt right." After seeing he had Emiya's attention, Dietrich elaborated. "I never ever feel right when everything is good. I cannot leave my mark when there is peace and leaving one through stirring up conflict isn't something I or my Origin are about. And when I checked… I don't blame you with what's left of your Circuits, but your analysis on the Grail was sloppy."

"And how did you do it? Stab the Greater Grail with some Mystic Code capable of analyzing Magecraft?" Kiritsugu was honestly curious.

"That would be stupid. No, I snuck into the temple and enchanted the pillars that support the structure to feed me data."

The other Magus whistled, appreciating the approach.

"Took me weeks. With Kotomine around and the people living at the temple being at least somewhat supernaturally aware, it was a slow job but I finally managed to set it up. Then a month of collecting readings. Really, I hate being reasonable like this." The older but healthier man grimaced. "But it was worth it. I found… irregularities that make me think the boy will need an extra edge or two."

Kiritsugu motioned for him to continue.

"Well, first of all, the Grail cannot be destroyed. Through Magecraft, I mean. We can always blow it up if we don't care about natural disasters or the possible appearance of Counter Force. The Grail is fused with the land itself, the Prana it gathers irrevocably tainted by the curse that was introduced to the system a long, long time ago." Dietrich shook his head in exasperation. "Even if it's destroyed, it will return in a few years. When you blew up the manifested Grail at the end of the War, it should have been ready to go again very quickly. It wasn't weakened by someone messing with the system, which probably happened the previous times. It didn't get to grant a wish. So the question is, where did the energy go? Some burned what is now a park, some tainted you, but not nearly enough. It must have gone into a vessel or two. The implications of something this twisted residing in anything that is can house it for all these years aren't something I like."

Kiritsugu started rubbing his forehead trying to stave off an oncoming migraine.

"So we can expect corrupted Spirits, Magi, Dead Apostles, Homunculi, really anything that could have been near enough to ground zero. And then there is the system itself. We've met the Matou heir, and the Tohsaka heir is also in the city. You say, the resident Church official is a sadistic manipulator in search of something to give his life meaning, and after meeting him I believe you."

Kiritsugu grimaced at the mention of Kotomine Kirei.

Dietrich continued, "I will try to gather info on the Tohsaka heir as we go on, but that's about all we know. Besides the fact that Zouken is apparently still alive, which is beyond suspicious. We have, what? Three out of seven?" He held up his hands, then started ticking off fingers. "The Association will send somebody. With their spectacular failure the last time, they might just wise up and give the job to an experienced Enforcer. A Magecraft practitioner affiliated with the Church is possible. Any of the wandering Magi who aren't strong enough to realize their own wishes. What if the system stops caring about the contender being a bona fide Magus? Starts letting in any humans with mystical powers? Burial Agency members, practitioners of 'Walking and Breathing'? What if it lets Dead Apostles in?"

"Now you are simply being paranoid."

"Am I? Really? Am I?"

"Yes. And this is coming from a professional assassin, mind you."

At this moment Dietrich looked more than just a little crazy, but he somehow managed to get himself under control.

"Still, the fact is we have all reason to suspect the next War will be even more screwed up than yours. Shirou will need not only to win but also to neutralize the Grail. Waver will help, of course, but he is more of bright college student turned child soldier than a resource that can really change anything. And I won't be able to get involved directly."

"At least this time, will you straight up tell me why?"

Dietrich contemplated evading the answer again, as he had done countless times, but decided to settle for a half-truth.

"I have very deep connections and lots of obligations and long-running contracts. It's not a problem normally, but if something happens to me people will come knocking. And they might just decide that your family is at fault as you are the ones who dragged me into this mess."

"Ah. Do you have a plan then?"

"We need to stop treating the kid like a glass vase. He's proven just how far he is willing to go with his training. We cannot keep him from school, not with the state his psyche is in, but we can tell him to not put too much effort to go beyond the passing grade. He needs to try out martial arts clubs. We should get him another teacher for that sort of thing. The Fujimura girl is good but formal kendo won't cut it in a real fight." He paused, thinking over his next words carefully. "Above all, Shirou needs an ace or ten before the fighting starts."

It took only a moment for Kiritsugu to catch up.

"You are talking about Noble Phantasms".

Dietrich nodded.

"How do you think I got so good at Mystic Codes? I've studied some that still remain in the world."

"But we can't just ask the people owning them to show their greatest treasures to some boy."

It wasn't a question, but the German Magus still answered.

"To some boy—no. To my official apprentice? Probably."

Kiritsugu's face hardened, and he glared at Dietrich.

"You want to reveal Shirou's existence to the Association."

"Yes. Look, how many decent weapons can we show him on the down low? Two, three? Hiding in plain sight is what always worked for me. Be wonky, be crazy, tell them I've found a kid with powers like mine who can design crazy complex Codes from scratch,» he said. "It won't even be a lie: he has amazing potential as a crafter. We don't tell anyone the exact extent of his powers and make Lord Waver Shirou's patron at the Tower. People get their items, Shirou gets access to what we can't give—everybody wins."

"As long as nobody catches my son practicing something impossible and slaps a Sealing Designation on him."

Dietrich rose his hands in a placating manner.

"Look, I'm not saying we do it right now. We'll pick a topic for him to focus on, like Runes and Formalcraft. I'll teach him until he's good enough to fool anyone into believing he is just a disgrace of Magus with a useful specialized talent. This way, I can probably arrange for him to see dozens Mystic Codes and several Noble Phantasms before the War."

Kiritsugu sighed, looking more weary than ever. He said, "This isn't even a real choice. Also, if you can find a Noble Phantasm he can soon, it would really raise our chances. Now I wanted to talk to you about a Magic Crest…"

###

One of the biggest challenges Kiritsugu had ever faced in his life was admitting to himself that he wasn't going to get Illya out of Einzberns' grasp. Dietrich helped in his own special way by tripping him near the stairs a couple times when Emiya was about to embark on another futile trip to Europe. Although painful, it did prove the point: he was far too weak.

Realizing that his son would always choose the well-being of other people over himself, Kiritsugu couldn't push his own dreams of world peace on the boy in good conscience. Even with all the warnings from both him and Dietrich it would take an absolute miracle for Shirou to avoid falling into a path of self-destruction in careless service to others.

But the dream of his daughter's freedom from the Einzberns was something he simply couldn't keep to himself. He remembered all too well how that particular family treated their 'tools'. Ironic how they could create life capable of feeling and conscious thought and then treat said life as if it was a mindless object.

Refusing to let go, Kiritsugu told Shirou everything shortly after the boy turned ten.

They were sitting in the living room; the last rays of the lazily setting bathed the room in shades of scarlet. In this light even the sickly pale skin of Shirou's father looked healthy. The red light hid any weakness leaving only determination.

"So I have a… sister."

His father nodded.

"Yes. Illya."

"And she is not fully human, and will not live long unless something is done."

"Yes."

Shirou stared into space, putting together what he knew about the Grail War and the founding families.

"She will be a Master in the next War."

"You think so?"

"Homunculi are really expensive, right? I mean it has to be really difficult, making a being that can turn into a Grail later? And they have one ready, it just makes sense to use her."

Dietrich, who was also present, nodded, but it was Kiritsugu who spoke.

"Listen, Shirou… I cannot say I regret the path I chose in life. There are far too many people I helped, and there were some good times too…" His eyes gained a far-off look to them. "But if there is one thing I do regret it's leaving Illya with those arrogant bastards. I'll be going soon: I'm not good for much anymore, but I can still do something to help you. So I have one final wish for you: please save your sister."

Shirou replied without hesitation.

"Okay. Do you know anything about keeping a Homunculus alive?"

Both Magi shook their heads.

"Does anyone know?"

Dietrich averted his eyes before answering, squeezing out words one at a time.

"There are people. I might even be able to get you in contact with them. But the real question is, what will they ask for in return? These Mysteries are rare, and you will not have much of a bargaining position."

Shirou nodded and took about a minute to project Avalon burning through his Od in the process.

"Then how about this."

Seeing Kiritsugu's confused expression, he added.

"Well, it's supposed to work properly with Saber, and I am sure he will be my Servant. I have the Catalyst inside me. So what would happen if I had Saber nearby, and Illya had Avalon or a really good copy on her?"

Dietrich rubbed his chin in contemplation for a few moments before breaking into a grin.

"In theory? She would stop aging completely. A good fix, at least while you search for something more permanent."

The sun, tired from the day, hid below the horizon, and with it the enthusiasm in Kiritsugu's eyes was gone. The cursed Magus slumped against a wall with a relieved sigh.

"Go on to your training, I'll watch from here."

Dietrich and Shirou walked into the yard that served as a practice field. It was large and warded against unwanted attention. The boy stood in the middle of the grounds while his teacher stayed a little behind him and to the left. The German Magus started his lesson.

"Let's recap. You cannot make several copies of the same weapon at once. The first one needs to be dismissed or destroyed before the next one can be Projected; otherwise you get a horribly degraded copy. You should be able to overcome it with training or at least make degrading less severe, so let's try again."

Shirou nodded and Traced two copies of the same blade, a simple knife with wound sealing properties. Its purpose was to simply stop the bleeding after touching a wound. The first copy went through the process smoothly: materials, production process, skills that went into its making, history of the blade—everything was recreated in less than a second.

The second copy was considerably worse. Shirou had found he couldn't properly picture the original inside his Reality Marble while the blade was in the real world. It was annoying as it made him rely on actual memories and the first copy in front of him as models. Memories weren't perfect like his Reality Marble, and Shirou felt that he would never be able to produce more than a dozen different swords this more mundane way. Preferably with short histories and enchantments he could easily understand.

Therein lay the problem: even with the first copy right in front of him he didn't have near enough knowledge to understand the blade's Mystery. Sighing, he dismissed the dull travesty of a knife. The copy he made using his Reality Marble as a blueprint still gleamed in the moonlight, winking at its creator mockingly.

Dietrich tsk-ed, somewhat disappointed.

"Well, no worries. We would be in real trouble if your limitation was actually just Prana. There are ways to go around that, by the way, some quite pleasant…" A disturbing smile briefly flashed across his face. "You are a walking armory, Shirou, but the way you are? You are more useful as a teacher of Tracing or a specialist of some sort. Without this particular limit, the Enforcers or Lorelei herself would probably just mind-break and turn you into an endless supply of the copies of the strongest Noble Phantasm they could find." He paused, a rare haunted look on his face. "You know what? No Enforcers until you are twenty-one. They are bad for you. Worse than careless sex, alcohol and drugs done at the same time."

This was when Kiritsugu rejoined the conversation.

"I'm also really glad we figured out the firing plane problem."

They had discovered that Shirou could easily spawn swords some ten feet away. Fifteen, if he pushed it. Add to that his ability to imbue them with movement upon creation, and it turned him into an extremely versatile ranged fighter.

One thing everyone agreed on was to get the boy into archery. Shirou turned out to be an excellent shot and was growing more and more proficient with the concept of 'arrow'. Dietrich and Kiritsugu theorized that pretty soon he would be able to Alter any sword with it. That would bump his combat ability a few notches, especially after mastering Reinforcement. A bow was also needed, but Dietrich was working on that.

They asked and answered more questions as to his abilities through his training. Could he fire swords from multiple points? Could Shirou make a zone of death by boxing an enemy inside an area where swords flew from all sides at an enemy in the middle? Not really.

Shirou fired his weapons from an imaginary flat square surface the plane of which included his body. Now, he could bend that surface, as if gripping two opposite sides of a sheet of metal and making a slight arch, but not much more. This made it impossible to fire something at an enemy from two significantly different angles, unless said enemy was standing right in front of the boy. Which wasn't a good spot to have an enemy in.

Then it was time for the third part of the routine. Shirou began working on Reinforcement, warming up by working on a simple stick and then moving on to his own body. Frankly, self-reinforcement was rarely used for good reason. Most Magi stuck to enhancing their muscles and skin as those were the easiest to heal in case of a botched Mystery. If you were sane, you'd never touch anything that was truly vital or impossible to heal. Although many practitioners weren't, in fact, in their right mind, they still liked to have use of their eyes. Or lungs. Or hearts.

The boy was still a beginner, so Dietrich stopped him from doing anything to vital organs. Still, Shirou was quite talented in this area of Magecraft, which was probably because of him seeing himself more as a blade than a real person. Plus, making the poor middle-schooler start studying anatomy was probably useful too.

Things were coming along nicely, but being competent wouldn't be enough. Being ruthless and efficient wouldn't be enough. Being good enough to be an actual danger to Heroic Spirits might be enough, but accomplishing that wouldn't be easy.

Which is why they had plans.

###

Kiritsugu and Dietrich went to London just after Shirou turned ten. The German Magus returned after a week, but his first adopted father never did. The boy he had been before the fire lost everything, but that had never seemed real to him. There were no memories, no feelings, nothing that could actually hurt. It was different with Kiritsugu, with the man who had shown him kindness, had shown him one of the ways to happiness. Even if the former assassin's ideals of world peace didn't fit Shirou, he still appreciated the value of being useful to others and serving something greater than himself.

On the day Kiritsugu left Shirou promised his father that he would find an ideal or a person worthy of wielding him.

Life went on. After a small funeral with an empty coffin, things barely changed. Sakura still came over often; Taiga doted on Shirou with double enthusiasm now, firmly committed to being his older sister now that Kiritsugu was dead due to an 'illness'. There was also school.

The only thing that had changed was the constant excruciating pain. Turned out that the reason Kiritsugu went to the Clock Tower was to turn himself in for study. In exchange, Shirou would get access to most of the Emiya Crest. The Magi there had long since finished with whatever they needed the Crest for, and so a deal was struck. One very peculiar and very cursed dying Magus donating himself to mostly painless research in life and an extensive autopsy in death in exchange for the remaining temporal-specialized Magic Circuits being delivered to Dietrich. The two Magi had probably used some spiel about Dietrich taking care of Kiritsugu's legacy or something. Shirou didn't bother to ask.

Regardless, what they were going to do with the Crest was insane. Normally you wouldn't be able to give your Crest to somebody who wasn't a blood relative, but a combination of Avalon and Shirou's own malleable nature made his body and soul capable of accepting the foreign Circuits. Or rather letting them burn into him one by one. The damage was partially offset by Avalon and healing blades under careful monitoring on Dietrich's part, but it was still an arduous process.

This took the better part of a year and the entire time it hurt like hell. Despite his distortion, Shirou decided that he, in fact, didn't like pain. It made it hard to focus in daily life, and he often twitched during archery practice causing Sakura's fairly weird brother Shinji to laugh at him. Not to mention having a particularly bad episode during cooking and throwing all the salt he had into the soup…

The additional problem was that walking around with another Circuit being in the process of fusing with him made him light up to the senses of Prana-sensitive people. Shirou's own sensory abilities manifested through the sense of smell, and as the Magic Crest wasn't a part of him yet, he smelled the damn thing constantly. It was a mixed odor of a fresh sea breeze and an ancient dusty ruin.

It was because of the Crest that he got to know Tohsaka Rin much sooner than he might have otherwise.

###

The first few weeks at school were the worst. Dietrich was able to buy Shirou a little time by getting the boy on sick leave for a while, but it wasn't like they could ignore his education altogether. After skipping a week he had to go back.

Even English was a problem with the constant pain. During the recess, Issei Ryoudou, one of his few real friends at school, kept giving Shirou strange looks.

"Hey, Shirou, are you really okay? You look kind of pale. You know, there is no need to force yourself. What's the use of coming here for a few days if you fall sick all over again?"

Perhaps it was the kind of strict education only a temple could give that made Issei sound like a stuck up college student instead of a middle-schooler.

"What's the use …" Shirou forced a smile. "The doctor said it will take a while, sorry for worrying you."

Issei rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and that was that.

At least before Math started. Shirou was so unfocused because of a particularly bad episode of stabbing pain that he got called into the teacher's room for a talk. He was barely able to comprehend what a kind-looking woman responsible for their grade was saying. Something about responsible pupils taking proper care of their health. His gaze wandered to a girl with black pigtails waiting for someone. She looked far too proper and focused on absolutely nothing right up to the point when their eyes met. Structural Grasping had pretty much become an automatic reflex for Shirou at this point. He didn't even need his signature Aria for it, it was like the required self-hypnotism was always present, and all that was required was a bit of concentration.

As he looked at the girl, a vaguely familiar stream of information flowed into him. A Mystery. Something he didn't understand, probably dealing with transferring and storing Prana. Shirou inhaled reflexively; the girl smelled of autumn leaves drying, of winter wind, of ozone, with undertones of something bittersweet. By now he had long since learned what such a strong smell meant. Dietrich exuded it when he worked, Sakura–when she got nervous or excited. His father had filled the air with cloying, sticky sweetness. The smell of Prana. He was pretty sure Sakura was also aware of his own nature, but a sort of 'don't ask, don't tell' policy had developed between them. He was fine with it.

Structural Grasping was a very minor Mystery but it was still a Mystery. And for those with any sort of sensor ability ignoring it from five feet away was impossible. The girl's eyes widened in surprise before narrowing.

"Sensei. Can I talk to… Emiya-kun, is it? I was a little sick a while back, maybe I can explain proper priorities better?"

The woman didn't look convinced, but she nodded anyway.

"If you think so, Tohsaka. It doesn't look like he is listening to me."

They walked away from the room in silence, and it took Shirou a couple minutes to realize they were heading to the roof. The girl, apparently named Tohsaka, stopped when they reached their destination, turned around to face Shirou, and started tapping her foot impatiently. It took the boy a while to understand that she was expecting him to speak.

"You smell like an autumn storm, Tohsaka-san."

And that was the moment Shirou got acquainted not only with Tohsaka but also with her right fist. In retrospect, it hadn't been the best opening line.

Later he sat propped up against a wall, rubbed his chin, and looked at Tohsaka while the girl glared at him, her lips quivering a bit from some emotion.

"Why didn't your family inform me another Magus was going to this school? Who are you?" she asked.

In the back of his mind Shirou noted how easily she slipped out of her 'perfect student' persona.

"And turn off that damn piece of Magecraft on your arm, it's difficult to look at!"

After a few moments Shirou understood that she was talking about the beginnings of a Magic Crest being implanted into him and manifesting in his body on his left arm. Later it would morph with the rest of it that would go on his back.

"I'm Shirou Emiya, pleased to meet you. Sorry about that, Tohsaka-senpai. I can't turn it off."

"Why?"

He didn't think the glare could get any worse but he was wrong.

"It's kind of settling in?"

"What do you mean, settling in? Wait a minute…"

Tohsaka leaned in closer, frozefor a moment, and then proceeded by clocking him another one in the shoulder. Shirou was getting a little annoyed. Being repeatedly punched wasn't fun.

"Hey, what's with all the hitting?"

"ARE YOU NUTS?! What sort of idiot implants a Crest at your age? You will die! It looks like it's burning you up right now! How can you even stand?!"

He couldn't help but be impressed. Sure, the thing was messing with his flow of Od like nobody's business, and he was bleeding a stream of Prana as a result. Coming to the correct conclusion in mere seconds was still amazing. Shirou wasn't a very good liar so he went for a half-truth option.

"I'll be okay. Probably. There is stuff that makes me able to survive it."

"Stuff like what?"

 _Not easily distracted_ , he noted.

"Anyway, I need to get stronger to find my purpose."

She was a Magus, so Shirou thought she would understand.

"Find your purpose? What in the name of the Root are you going on about?"

Tohsaka's mouth twitch was joined by a quivering brow.

 _Today just isn't my day._

"You know, to protect people, to find an ideal or someone to wield me… Something like that."

"Someone to wield you?"

The girl pinched the bridge of her nose and struck a dramatic pose, all her look screaming 'staving off a migraine'.

"I was right, you are nuts," she said. "Anyway, my name is Tohsaka Rin, and I'm the heir to the family in charge of this city. If you don't want to deal with my teacher—a very bad idea by the way—come visit me in a week or so. We'll do proper introductions."

She took a long look at his feverish face.

"If you really don't die."

Leaving, she added something under her breath that Shirou could barely make out.

"Just my luck the only Magus my age I can talk to is a nutjob."

Absentmindedly, Shirou noted that Rin smelled a lot like Sakura.

Chapter end notes

And so the second real chapter is done. We are finally getting down into the meat of the story, so let me know what you think with a review. If you have the time, of course.

I'll try to let up on exposition in the future chapters and go into character development more, but this stuff needed to be told. I always felt that the way Shirou's powers worked was kind of vague, so I introduced some ground rules. These are not canon, as far as I know.

Also, regarding the bit about Avalon and Emiya's Magic Crest. I know I'm pushing the boundary of Nasuverse's system a bit, but my argument is that Avalon is the ultimate healing item, and without Saber around its effect is only diminished. So it still does basically the same thing: heals any sort of damage done to the wielder, except it does so very slowly. In this story this effect will be enough to make it possible for a talented child to survive having Magic Crest Circuits being implanted one by one.

Now that all the main players have been introduced, I'm looking forward to writing more interactions between them. Please let me know what you think and favorite the story if you like it.

Until next time.


	4. Her Song

Author's intro

The last chapter got quite a bit of feedback! Thank you all for the continued interest in this story and thank you, Kinoko Nasu, for the amazing universe you created for us to enjoy and play with. I don't own it; Nasu and Type-moon do.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

 _Thoughts._

 _"_ _Arias and other Mysteries."_

 ** _"_** ** _Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."_**

Enjoy, full notes at the end of the chapter.

 **Chapter acknowledgements:** while I would like to think that I would have fiddled with the appearance of Shirou's Reality Marble anyway, ThirdFang's awesome spin on it has probably been a factor. If you for some reason haven't tried 'From Fake Dreams' by him, please do.

Her Song

Tohsaka Rin was what anyone would consider a model student and a model Magus. At school, she was at the top of their year, idolized for both her academic prowess and looks. In private, though… suffice it to say that simply not dying under the tutelage of Kotomine Kirei demanded talent, guts, and a certain amount of defiance. The man knew the theory, but he was no Tohsaka and a rudimentary Magus at best. Then there was the lingering suspicion that he simply didn't care much about her surviving the training. The old hypocrite would probably find her death amusing.

When she was nine, the girl made a decent attempt to fight her own tendency toward arrogance. She had felt that being stuck up distanced her from everyone, but it just wasn't in the stars for her to be humble with her superior intellect and looks. In the end, she gave up and crafted a polite, if a little distant, public personality, affording but a peak at her true self to a pair of friends: Ayako Mitsuzuri and Kaede Makidera.

She was good, she knew it, and she would do her absolute best to make sure her family's name would stand proud among the Edelfelts and Einzberns of her world.

Which was why Rin had to wonder how she found herself watching Shirou bustle about the kitchen like a bumble-bee on a sugar-high. Dietrich, Shirou's father, sat across from the female Magus and studied her with a twinkle in his eyes. Gladstone had contacted the girl a few days after her incident with his adopted son and arranged a meeting. Supposedly, it would be easier to hide everything from Kirei at their house. He even threw in an oath that she wouldn't be hurt. A tediously useless bout of homework she had been fighting through at the time must have been why she foolishly agreed. Tohsaka had calmed down shortly after entering the house to find herself in an enclosed space with two Magi she didn't know inside of several Bounded Fields that did Root-knew-what. The experience could have been humbling if it weren't for the danger.

The smell of something delicious interrupted her rapidly darkening thoughts. Shirou floated towards them along with the odor, carrying a large plate with a pile of potatoes and fish on top.

"Salmon?" she asked, not daring to touch the food.

Dietrich laughed at her hesitance and helped himself to about a third of what Shirou had brought. The man's motions were sharp, economical, if a bit erratic. As if he were a poisonous snake on meth.

Their chef started putting food on her plate while she watched him with suspicion.

"Don't be shy, Tohsaka-san. And don't worry, the food is perfectly safe. Shirou would never insult his work that way," Dietrich said.

The elder host honest-to-Root winked at her and punctuated his words by taking another large bite. What the hell was wrong with these people and their absent sense of propriety?

"Dietrich, what are you talking about?"

"Tohsaka-san is afraid of poison, it seems."

Gladstone was on his third or fourth mouthful by that point, and Shirou looked so offended that even Tohsaka had to admit they probably wouldn't poison her. Not like the annoying boy had much of a poker-face. She tried a bite and made an undignified yelp in surprise, which she immediately attempted to cover with a cough. The damnable German Magus was on the verge of laughing at her yet again.

"This, this is good…"

"Isn't it? I'm trying to make pen-bred salmon taste more like wild salmon," Shirou said. "Pen-bred salmon has so much fat in it… So I put it on a grate above the potatoes and as it bakes, it drips fat onto the potatoes and—voila! Then I sprinkle a bit of lemon juice to offset the taste of the remaining fat."

She could only shake her head as the boy lost himself in the intricacies of cooking. Tohsaka lived alone, so she had to master quite a few recipes, mostly Western. She found it more a necessity than pleasure.

Dietrich responded with a deep chuckle.

"That's my Shirou. Give the boy any problem and some tools, and he'll combine them in a way that solves it. So, you wanted to talk about something, Tohsaka-san?"

Rin got momentarily distracted by how good the food tasted. She could easily identify that there were no spices apart from salt, lemon juice and thyme. The trick obviously lay in the temperature at which it was cooked and in the time that heat had been applied. This spoke of repeated experiments, which was an attitude she admired, even if the boy was a crappy Magus. Of that she had little doubt: why would they risk such insane treatments otherwise?

Shirou sat near Dietrich, carefully settling his abused body on the cushion, and stared at. His unblinking, ramrod-straight manner was unnervingly different from the way people usually looked at her.

She said, "I read up on grafting Mystic Crests, Gladstone-san."

"And you understood the theory?" Dietrich sounded mildly impressed.

"Please, it's easy. I mean, I can't graft one myself yet, but the concept—piece of cake. A Magic Circuit is basically a chunk of your soul, so you sort of peel it off and transfer it into a seal on your body. This can later be transplanted to a relative. Easy."

"Simple—maybe. Not easy at all. This is manipulating a soul with Mysteries; something bordering on True Magic," the German Magus said.

"But here is something I don't understand. All the books say that even a blood relative can reject the Crest, and the probability of a non-relative surviving the process is dangerously close to zero. There is no way to know in advance, so it's an insane risk. Why do it? And why do you want to hide Shirou from the fake priest?" She waved a hand in the direction of the silent boy. "I mean, I know you've introduced yourself, Gladstone-san, and my teacher, reservations aside, is one of the best healers in the country."

For once, Dietrich's went still, but it was Shirou that answered.

"Tell me, do you trust your teacher, Tohsaka?"

"What, no honorifics, Shirou-kun?"

The boy gave her a deadpan stare.

"You are too direct for honorifics. You can call me Emiya."

"Whatever you say, Shirou-kun."

Oh, how she enjoyed watching him wince.

"I trust my teacher about as far as I can throw him," Tohsaka said.

"Can you throw him?"

"No."

They looked each other for about ten seconds before Dietrich burst out laughing.

"I talked to the guy for half an hour and he really got on my nerves, but alienating his own little pupil? That Kotomine is really something." Having laughed to his heart's content, Dietrich continued. "We don't trust him either, Tohsaka-san. Let's just say that Shirou's father had some history with the man. There is a possibility Kirei would try to interfere with Shirou's education, and him meddling is never good."

She had wondered what the situation with Shirou's family was. The past tense regarding his father told her they were most likely gone. Rin nodded, urging Dietrich to go on.

"As for your first question… There are additional circumstances, so there is little chance of the rejection killing Shirou."

"What, he doesn't have a soul? Because that's the only way I can think of that he can survive."

"What? No, no! Nothing like that. How would that even work? Even Dead Apostles have souls. It will be easier to simply show you. It's a Mystery, nothing that can hurt you."

Tohsaka realized she would be at their mercy if she gave them permission to practice Thaumaturgy in front of her. Wait, she already was at their mercy. Brusquely, Rin gestured for Dietrich to get on with it.

To her surprise, it wasn't the older Mage who moved but Shirou. The boy reached out with his right hand.

 _"_ _Trace, On."_

 _What sort of Mantra is that?_ she thought.

Meanwhile, the younger Magus closed his eyes and mumbled something under his breath, before opening them wide. There was a sharp contained explosion of Mana and an object appeared in his hand.

Tohsaka blinked.

"Projection?"

The boy nodded.

"And how does making an empty copy…"

As she eyed the golden-tinged 12-inch dagger that Shirou laid on the table she felt that something was off. Cursing the insanity those strange people were making her dive into, the girl leaned in and poked the blade with a finger.

"That's a Mystic Code."

"Yes."

"You Projected a Mystic Code. And you are still conscious."

For the first time since starting to learn Thaumaturgy, the genius Magus found herself completely lost for words. It took her half a minute to regain her ability to formulate coherent thoughts.

"Still, that doesn't explain…"

"Shirou constantly projects healing Mystic Codes to offset the rejection," said Dietrich. "It's rather brilliant, actually."

"Brilliant? Brilliant?!" It was an impressive feat, to make the model student Tohsaka Rin so red in the face, it matched the scarlet in her clothes. "Are you kidding me? How does he even get the effects to be constant? How does he get the Codes to work all the time?!"

"Well, I sort of Project them inside myself. Between organs."

Improvisation clearly wasn't one of Shirou's strengths. Tohsaka stared at them both. Hard.

"Stop lying or I will go to Kirei."

Clearly, the experience of being one-upped by a pre-teen girl wasn't a pleasant one for Dietrich if his disgruntled expression was anything to judge this by.

"Shirou, what did I tell you about thinking things through?" he asked. "How would you Project something inside yourself? Where would the tissue that was there even go?" Dietrich sighed. "Tohsaka-san, it's kind of a secret so can you promise not to tell anyone?"

"I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."

"Well, that was worth trying… Shirou has a powerful healing artefact implanted that provides constant regeneration. It is slow enough to be useless under most circumstances but it can actually heal the damage rejection does. With periodically using external healing, it is barely enough to make grafting safe."

Rin couldn't believe what she was hearing. Where were the days when charging a gem with magical energy counted as something novel and amazing?

"So, let me get this right. You are saying that he is constantly experiencing grafting rejection." She jabbed a finger at Shirou. "But he has something jammed INSIDE HIS BODY THAT KEEPS HIM ALIVE AND IN CONSTANT AGONY?!"

She did try to hold her voice in and that was what was important, she thought.

"Please, stop screaming, Tohsaka," said Shirou. "Yes, pretty much. Though it's not on the level where I would go into shock from pain so it's okay."

"OKAY?! HOW IS THAT OKAY?! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

"I think Tohsaka-san needs some time to herself, Shirou. Let's leave her with tea and go have that lesson we have scheduled."

As Shirou left the room to go deeper into the room, he turned.

"I hope the salmon was to your liking."

"It was very good, thank you." Her response was reflexive and delivered in a perfectly level tone.

Shirou shook his head and left.

And then she was alone, staring at her half-full plate, stupefied by the tale she had been told. Either Shirou was a much better liar than she gave him credit for, or both him and Dietrich were certifiably insane. Shrugging, Rin ate the food before it got cold.

After finishing, she waited five minutes for somebody to return and escort her out before remembering that Shirou and Dietrich went Root-knew-where to have a 'lesson'. She could simply leave; the more sensible part of her was practically screaming to do just that, but it was silenced by the bane of all humans, be they Magi or not. Curiosity. Aside from being insane, the elder Magus and his pupil were a puzzle. Dietrich himself was something of a legend: he was rumored to be the best when it came to Mystic Codes. Rin held no illusions. Mystery-wise, Fuyuki city might as well have been some backwater village in the middle of frozen Siberia. The Matou and Tohsaka families had lost a lot of their influence and there were no other notable presences around. That is, until Dietrich Gladstone decided to make the city a place of permanent residence.

Shirou was even more intriguing. Tohsaka didn't have much experience in interacting closely with other Magi, except for the fake priest, whose status as a Magus was debatable. She wasn't sure what a 'normal' practitioner was supposed to be like, but she was confident Shirou wasn't it. He got good marks at school, practiced a normally useless branch of Magecraft with impossible results, and treated crippling pain as if it mattered only if it sent him into medical shock. Tohsaka couldn't really justify snooping around somebody else's house, which was why she told herself she had to find the masters of the compound to say goodbye. Conscience sufficiently appeased, she set out on her investigation.

It didn't take long to realize that Dietrich's annoying sense of humor wasn't his only defining trait—the man was paranoid. Half the doors and walls deeper in the building were covered with layered Bounded Fields that she guessed didn't promise intruders a show of sparkling rainbows and cute ponies.

Eventually she came upon a door with a large plaque saying 'Shirou's room. No entrance with water!' Strangely enough, there were no mystical protections of any kind on or near it. She really had no excuse to enter, but the temptation to see the weirdo's living space was far too great. Tohsaka pushed the Japanese-style door aside.

Rin didn't think she had ever been so disappointed in her life. The room in front of her was almost completely empty. The furniture consisted of a built-in closet, a cushion on the floor and a table. The latter had a laptop on it (what kind of Magus used electronics?), a photograph, and some sort of Thaumaturgy project, which involved a lot of wood and a bit of Mana.

It could have been worse, she supposed. Not less boring, but definitely worse.

Tohsaka walked up to the table. The photo was of an older scruffy looking middle-aged man and Shirou. The man, who must have been Shirou's dead father, looked happy and his son was his usual quiet self. There was a certain twinkle in his eyes she hadn't seen before, though. Absent-mindedly, she ran a hand over the wooden parts strewn all over the table. Their aura them tingled her fingers, and the papers to the left hinted it was supposed to be some sort of a Mana dampener. A case to conceal a Mystic Code from detection, maybe. Tohsaka decided it was time to call it quits, set her mind on really finding Dietrich, turned around. And froze.

When she walked in she didn't look back and so didn't see the wall that ended up behind her. Which was covered in blades.

Knives, swords, spearheads, and unidentifiable metal objects with sharp edges hung on supports, occupying every inch. Straight, curved, light, heavy… More than one hundred square feet of gleaming metal death. Just opposite the table two katanas in lacquered sheaths stood out, but the rest of the wall just blended together into a sea of murder. Then she noticed the post-it notes. They were bright-pink and yellow and had things written on them in methodical handwriting like 'great for crushing bone', 'excellent for throat-slicing', 'good composition, poor balance', 'oil and clean on Friday' and, on a large cleaver-like blade with a small chip on the edge, 'you should see the other guy'. On the floor under the exhibit an anatomical atlas lay, open on the page describing the human vascular system complete with notes on how to make a man bleed out with as few wounds as possible.

At this point all curiosity was forgotten, and belated survival instinct kicked in. Tohsaka didn't even remember how she came to be in front of her manor, panting heavily and trying not to think of what she got herself into. Or what she might have avoided.

###

Shirou thought he heard the sound of somebody running by the room they used for classes but made no comment. This lesson was especially important as the material they were using came from his father.

While Kirtsugu had originally wanted nothing more than to keep his adopted son as far from his past as possible, he eventually recognized that Shirou would need every edge available to him if he were to survive the Holy Grail War. He could only ask Dietrich to make sure the boy didn't choose assassination for justice as a profession and hope for the best.

So now they were going over the basics of surprise attacks and using collateral damage to gain an upper hand. This was fairly new ground for his teacher as well. With how important what they were doing was, Shirou found it deeply unnerving that his thoughts tended to stray to the arrogant, bossy, and quite annoying side of Tohsaka Rin he had come to know today. He wondered whether most Magi were that self-absorbed.

###

To Sakura, school was just another set of rules to play by, another role she had to fulfill or risk making Zouken upset. Her brother might have been the more openly violent and unstable one in the family, but it was the grandfather who was worthy of every drop of fear the girl could still muster. Luckily for her, whatever Zouken's plans were, they didn't include Sakura being an honor roll student, which mostly left her to her own devices. Before meeting Shirou this meant going through each of the days on autopilot before returning home, to the place she outwardly didn't care for and hated deep inside. Now that the younger Emiya and Taiga-onee-san had wormed their way into her life, things changed. She was warmer to other pupils, especially those at the archer's club. This drove Shinji nuts, but it wasn't like he could do anything to her that would hurt her heart. Her brother was far too impulsive and stupid to think beyond screaming and violence.

And so her days passed: smiling at Shirou in the halls, quietly going through the lessons, enjoying archery, studying just enough, and spending as much time as possible at the Emiya household.

If there was one person who she didn't know how to feel about at school, it was her former sister, Rin Tohsaka. By silent agreement, they met only when they couldn't avoid each other. Their shared past was something neither would mention, and their present lives couldn't be further apart. That was why Sakura was stupefied when Tohsaka approached her between classes and asked, no, demanded to immediately talk to her on the roof. Rin appeared her normal composed self at first glance, but circles under her eyes and a loose right ribbon betrayed her. Something was wrong.

They stood still on the roof for about a minute with Rin rolling on the balls of her feet while the younger girl waited quietly. Eventually Tohsaka inhaled deeply and exploded in a blast of speech.

"You need to stop going to Emiya's house! Those people are crazy, it isn't safe!"

Sakura was silent for a while, but when she finally looked up, her gaze was arctic cold.

"I don't see how where I go is any business of yours, Tohsaka-senpai."

"But, but I can't let you—"

"As I said, Tohsaka-senpai, it's none of your business. My family is okay with me being friends with Emiya-kun, I am okay with being friends with him, and that's already more than you need to know."

Even as she cut Rin off, Sakura wondered why exactly Zouken didn't have anything against her spending time with Shirou. The old man normally did everything to make her life miserable, and she didn't believe even for a moment the tales of needing to continue the family legacy. That man cared only about himself and his worms, and both of those were the same thing.

"But Shirou is an enemy Magus! They will steal your secrets! They can hurt you!"

Again Sakura went quiet, but when she spoke this time, her tone was thick and sugary, like tar pretending to be honey.

"Tohsaka-senpai, what do you know about my family's Mysteries?"

"Not much… I know you use insects…"

"We are also hosts to some creatures we use. Do you know what it's like to become one without being a true Makiri at the age I did?"

Tohsaka went pale and stepped back in reflex.

"Of course you don't, Tohsaka-senpai. But I see that you can imagine. Emiya-kun, Kiritsugu-san, Gladstone-san—they've never hurt me. They've never asked anything about Matou Mysteries and never mentioned Mysteries at all."

So quietly that Tohsaka might not have heard it, she added, "And this is why I would tell them everything if they asked."

"You know Kiritsugu is dead, right?"

Sakura said, "He was a kind man. Wise. A little scary."

Tohsaka slumped with a sight for a moment before perking up.

"Shirou's room is full of knives, blades! Axes, spears… Why are you laughing?! This isn't funny!"

Sakura could no longer contain herself. She bent half-over, her laughter brought her to tears. This episode of slight hysteria lasted nearly a minute before the girl straightened up, jutted out her jaw stubbornly and spoke.

"I. Don't. Care. Not everyone has pretty jewels as the basis for their Mysteries, Tohsaka-senpai."

The bell rang.

"The recess is over, and we have lessons. If you will excuse me."

After Sakura slammed the door to the roof, she started shaking. Years of not talking to each other, and now she and Rin had had a row and, shockingly, she was the one to antagonize her sister. The world had gone crazy.

Later that day she was forced to reconsider. It was not the world that was insane, it was her. That was the only explanation why Sakura thought she could see Tohsaka fifteen as she walked toward the Emiya household like she did nearly every day.

To test the complexity of the hallucination, she stopped. Not-Rin stopped too. She started walking, and her silent shadow started walking too. Tentative, Sakura reached inside herself, tugging at a few Circuits and agitating the crest worms a little. A cursory probe revealed that the being behind her was either the real Rin Tohsaka or somebody very good at masquerading as her. She calmly noted to herself that if the second option had been true, she would probably be dead right now.

"This is ridiculous. Tohsaka-senpai! Would you like walk together?"

After hesitating for a moment Rin caught up with a couple dozen fast steps.

"I thought your house was in a different direction, Tohsaka-senpsai."

Sakura remembered her former home's location perfectly, but the temptation to jab at her former sister after the annoyance Tohsaka had caused during school was too much. Rin flinched, sighed and looked away.

"Yes. I just remembered I need to talk to Emiya about something."

Sakura looked at the other girl from the corner of her eye.

"And you aren't going with me to make sure Emiya-senpai doesn't eat me or cut me with those knives you saw in his room?"

"Of course not," said Tohsaka. "I just have some more questions for him and Dietrich. I mean, I can't rely on the fake priest all the time… He isn't even a real practitioner."

Sakura actually giggled at that before catching herself.

"Do you know that Taiga-senpai will be there?"

"Who?"

 _This will be fun_ , Sakura thought. It was moments like these that made her feel like a real person, not like a doll simply existing through unimaginable humiliation, abuse and torture in order to fulfill some yet unknown ambition of an egotistical ancient Magus.

She was almost grateful to Tohsaka for her meddling.

###

Shirou found that something was different about that particular morning. Something in the air, perhaps? He didn't think it was Prana as much as a fleeting feeling, impossible to grasp at, yet always there. Overall, it added to the chore that middle-school was: some subjects and teachers were all right but what was up with asking him about some noble killing a bunch of people to help another bunch of people ages ago? He could recite the facts well enough, but why were they asked to form opinions about the past? It happened. Draw conclusions. Move on.

Sadly, his outlook wasn't appreciated by the history teacher, and his recent personal-opinion-free essay had earned the boy a rare C-, which he had brought home. Neither he nor Dietrich really cared, but it was still unnerving how inefficient school education was with distracted children and teachers who had to fight for every scrap of attention. Why couldn't everybody just focus, finish all the lessons in half the time, and then do something productive?

Shirou finally understood what the sense of foreboding was about when he got home. In the kitchen, oil sizzled happily, Sakura hummed a lullaby, and the air smelled of fried chicken—that was business as usual. What wasn't was the additional company present in the nearby dining room.

Gladstone sat in a corner, a mischievous smile on his lips.

"Welcome home, Shirou."

"Thank you…"

This was when Taiga Fujimura barreled into the conversation from her spot at the table.

"SHIROU, WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT STARTING A HAREM?!"

"Erm… Nothing?"

"Right. Because I didn't think my cute little brother would ever stoop so low. HAREMS ARE BAD, SHIROU! STOP MAKING YOUNG, BEAUTIFUL, CLUELESS GIRLS FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU!"

That was when the final occupant of the room tried to speak up. By the quaver in her voice anyone would be able to tell this was not the first time Tohsaka tried to stop Fujimura's train of thought. Unfortunately, it was far too much like trying to stall a literal train with her meager body.

"I am not in love with—"

"No, no, of course you aren't, you poor girl. SHIROU!"

Shirou sighed and rubbed his eyes in frustration before walking up to Rin.

"Good evening, Tohsaka-san. Can I get you anything?"

"Um…"

Tohsaka looked completely lost at this point, blinking and looking at each person in turn. Of them all, only Sakura and Dietrich seemed completely unperturbed. Both looked entertained, as a matter of fact.

"Right," said Shirou. "Water it is then."

"Dietrich! Shirou is ignoring me! My little brother is ignoring me!"

"No one is ignoring you, Fujimura-san," Dietrich said. "Some idiot new underling gifted her a cake."

The boy groaned. Taiga was like a four-year-old on speed most of the time and giving her anything with a high quantity of sugar in it was tantamount to giving said kid stimulants and throwing sleep-deprivation into the mix. All restraints were snapped, and the tiger turned into a maelstrom of chaos and destruction.

As Shirou set a glass of water on the table in front of Tohsaka, he said, "Sakura. Please, a lot of meat for Fujimura-sensei. With a lot of fat."

Their only hope for survival now was to make the rampaging beast sleepy.

Later that day Fujimura was happily snoozing somewhere in the house after being tucked in by Dietrich. The rest of them were still in the living room, finishing up the brick chicken with fries Sakura had provided.

"This is good, Sakura."

"Senpai is still better," the younger girl said.

Tohsaka was looking between them with a degree of fascination normally associated with seeing an extinct animal. She mumbled something under her breath before looking up and fixing Shirou with her gaze.

"What's up with the knives?"

Dietrich laughed.

"Sneaking around a boy's bedroom? How unbecoming of you, Tohsaka-chan."

Gladstone's teasing smile, Sakura's smirk, Shirou's frank surprise—they made Rin's face go red like an overripe tomato.

"Anyway, you kids talk it out. I have some chores in the city."

After Gladstone left, Shirou was left inside with the three women. Thankfully, Taiga was taking her catnap deep enough in the house to not hear anything. Emiya did his best not to look at Sakura until the girl smiled.

"I know you are a Magus, senpai. But why knives?"

At this moment Tohsaka suddenly remembered something and pointed an accusatory finger at Shirou.

"I am so not in love with you!"

When she saw the dumbfounded expressions on both Shirou's and Sakura's faces, she felt the rest of her blood flow to her face until her toes felt cold. She sat back down.

"I sort of specialize in blades? Like, blades-based Mysteries?"

Tohsaka cocked her head, colour slowly returning to normal.

"So, like Projection?"

Shirou nodded.

"I wish I had knives…"

"Your family has bugs and stuff, right?" asked Shirou. "I don't see how that's worse than blades…"

Sakura slumped looking to be on the verge of tears, and Tohsaka looked between the two of them, unsure what to do. Shirou summoned a scalpel. He made a quick incision on his left arm, then dismissed the blade with the same speed he called it.

"Senpai! Why did you do that? We need water, a bandage, you will bleed out!"

Tohsaka looked simply resigned.

"You are nuts, Shirou. Did you write all those notes on blades to remember how to open yourself up or something?"

Tohsaka noticed that the clean cut on the upper side of the boy's forearm was shallow and didn't bleed much. Shirou just shook his head.

"No, just look."

He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply and frowned in concentration.

" _Trace, on. My body is made of blades._ "

He was too busy opening half of his Circuits, creating a Bounded Field inside his own body all the while trying not to pay attention to the sharp burning pain the protesting Emiya Crest gave off to see the results himself. But the girls' reactions were telling.

"By the Root!.."

"That. What is that, senpai?"

Shirou opened his eyes and saw metal grinding inside the wound as he had expected. Honestly, he had no idea how that particular Mystery worked. It came naturally to him, and it looked like the muscles turned into a jaggy mess of small blades scratching on each other while the bones turned to metal. He was still more than sketchy on significant details like whether it worked on internal organs, and what happened to blood vessels and the like. For now, both the boy and Dietrich deemed the practice to be unsafe if he kept the Field up for more than five seconds. Proper study was postponed until Saber was summoned and brought full-on Avalon regeneration with him.

He dispelled the Mystery and looked dispassionately at the scratches the blades added to the cut.

"What it sounds like. I can sort of turn my body into blades. Stuff on the inside, not skin…"

Tohsaka's eyes turned calculating while Sakura continued to look concerned.

"That shouldn't be possible without some serious damage. Have you ever tried to find your birth parents? Maybe it's a family ability?"

Shirou wasn't about to spill his beans about being an Incarnation and thankfully Sakura intervened.

"Stop interrogating him, Tohsaka-senpai. Senpai, you could simply tell us."

The girl had got a bandage from somewhere in the kitchen and was now wrapping Shirou's forearm, all the while glaring at Rin.

"What? He will heal. You will heal, right?"

"Yes, five to six hours for a shallow cut."

"Five to six—" she stuttered. "You will walk half a day with your arm sliced half-open?"

"It's no big deal. I have a writing assignment from Dietrich, and they feel like an entire day. Right arm is enough."

If ever there was an 'I told you so' expression, Sakura was wearing one now, and Tohsaka felt appropriately chastised. She shook her head.

"You will kill yourself before you hurt anybody else…"

"Hey, it's a Projected knife! It's super, ideally clean, and I don't need my arm for the rest of the day. How else do you think I could show you I can have blades under my skin?"

Judging by the looks he got from the girls, he had a point. In a really screwed-up I-don't-ever-want-to-consider-it kind of way. It was Sakura who replied.

"No, it is not okay, Shirou-kun. You have to take better care of yourself. Didn't Dietrich tell you?"

"He is the one who came up with the whole thing. I mean, it doesn't leave scars scars, and I need to see how the Mystery is working…"

Rin noticed that as the boy kept speaking, her sister seemed to grow more and more agitated. Sakura spoke to Shirou with such caring, worry, and kindness that one would need to be an imbecile not to put two and two together. The harem comments would require one to be algae. Some type of moss or, possibly, the oblivious boy Sakura had an obvious crush on. Scratch that, Rin was lying to herself, and it wouldn't do. Tohsaka read her share of mushy romance novels, to her eternal shame, and she thought she knew what a crush was allegedly like. Sakura had known Emiya for years, and it was only around him that she acted normal. 'Madly in love' seemed to be the more appropriate expression for her sister's feelings. It took her a supreme effort of will not to facepalm at that very moment.

While Sakura was cooing over Shirou's wound, Tohsaka realized she couldn't hope to rip her sister away from the boy.

And yet, Shirou was broken to the point of being outright suicidal at times. In a rational, infuriating kind of way, and this wasn't something she wanted her little sister to be around. Neither Gladstone nor the old Matou gave a crap, so it was up to her to ensure Sakura's safety, no matter what memories being near the younger girl unearthed.

That day Rin Tohsaka decided to befriend Shirou Emiya, for her sister's sake. She couldn't completely silence the little voice in the back of her head that insisted she was doing it for herself too. Obviously, the voice spoke about talking Dietrich into giving her lessons to fix the gaps in education the fake priest had left.

###

Shirou had known for a long time there was quite a bit wrong with him as a person, now he was forced to add his propensity for getting weird friends to the list. His best friend would almost surely become a temple monk after finishing school, but one guy could be a simple coincidence. Taiga was a crazy, shinai-wielding elder sister type, but not including her on the list would have been unfair. Gladstone had never filled his father's shoes completely, apparently satisfied with the image of a quirky mentor and older friend, so he had to be counted too.

Before Rin appeared, he had been able to think of Sakura as normal, apart from the fact that she spent most of her free time at his house for some reason. And was a Magus with bugs living inside her body, but at least the bugs were alive and didn't cut flesh like his blades did. She wasn't very comfortable talking about her family's practices. Based on the bits and pieces he had gleaned, there were a few dozen worms that worked as Magic Circuits. His own Crest was much more dangerous: Shirou still had to endure the constant pain of rejection battling with regeneration.

Enter Tohsaka Rin: the school idol, model student, and revered beauty. Someone worshipped by everyone around their age. Impeccable, intelligent, and noble. And an absolute annoyance, overbearing nag, and spring of confusion in private.

Apparently, he was nuts but sort of okay, and needed her wisdom. In return for this she would kindly accept modest offerings of food and being included in Gladstone's non-specialized lessons. On the day she and Sakura first visited him together Rin offered that deal, promptly accepted it by herself, and left the house before Shirou could blink. She then started showing up at his place two or three time a week. Tohsaka never walked with Emiya and Matou from school; she pretended to go home and then doubled back. This happened on random days at a random time, which irritated Shirou like few things could. He hated heating up food and had to brush up on a variety of cold dishes. If Rin appreciated all that work, she never showed it.

Dietrich agreed to everything suspiciously quickly, as if he had been expecting or, worse yet, hoping for two extra students sneaking into his classes. Although it might have simply been the chance to take a look at the techniques the two longest-running families in the region used when performing Mysteries.

Because Sakura immediately started to furiously alternate between blanching and blushing whenever Matou's Mysteries came up, Gladstone started their first lesson with Tohsaka.

"So. Since we will be working together from time to time, I think we should cover the basics of your specialties. You can correct me if I'm wrong at any time, Tohsaka-chan. Now, the Tohsaka brand of Mysteries is similar to the one employed by the European family Edelfelts."

"Gems, right?"

"Right, Shirou. I'm glad you've been doing your reading. Imagine a Mystic Code; the whole Mystery woven into an object, ready to be actualized. Is it clear in your minds? Good." He crossed out with flourish some unidentifiable objects on the blackboard. "Now forget it. Gems are actually crappy Mystic Code material by themselves: they are small, hard and it's far too difficult to cover them in runes or some other material to make the Mystery work. But you know what they are great for?"

"Storing Prana."

"Of course you know that, Tohsaka-chan. I was expecting Shirou-kun or Sakura-chan to answer."

Among Gladstone's pupils only Tohsaka was called by her family name.

"Still, correct. When you craft a Mystic Code, you can embed gems in it and use them to store energy. Tohsaka Circuits are famously suited for the task of charging gems, so they can go one step further. They can forgo the whole Code thing, simply pump the gem full of Prana, and then fuel any Mystery they like with it. Lets you bring a lot of firepower if you have the time to prepare, but gems take time to charge and almost always shatter on use."

Tohsaka murmured something suspiciously like 'bills, pain, bills' under her breath.

"A lot of money is needed, but if a Tohsaka or an Edelfelt have a satchel of gems with enough power, it's nearly impossible for them to bottom out."

Shirou looked at Sakura.

"And Matou?"

"Mmhmmm… Insect control and additional Circuits through implanting very minor Beasts inside them. Although, I must say, Zouken isn't very careful with the training in your case, Sakura-chan—we'll speak more after the lesson."

After they were done, Tohsaka went on to cook supper. Apparently, she got into her head that she wouldn't be one-upped by some crazy third-rate Magus in anything. Shirou and Sakura stayed.

It was strange to see Dietrich completely serious, his face rigid and eyes focused on the girl.

"I didn't want to speak to you before I was completely sure, Sakura-chan. This concerns Shirou as well. It's critical you don't tell Zouken about this conversation unless he asks you directly. How well can you act?"

The girl responded with a smile, carefree and bright.

"I don't know what you are talking about, Gladstone-sensei."

"I thought so."

Shirou just blinked and looked at each of them in turn, hoping for an explanation.

"I assume you know what a Holy Grail is?"

"Yes. The wish-granting miracle created by the three founding families."

Her answer sounded had certain rhythm to it and a lack of inflection to it. College students have been mastering that tone for centuries while reciting boring drivel at exams.

"Good, Sakura-chan. We also know it's corrupted beyond any hope of repair or, indeed, reasonably safe use. Remember Kiritsugu's illness?" A shadow of sadness flickered over his facial features. "The cause was the Grail's essence he got during the last War. Back when he was alive we installed Bounded Fields to monitor the progress of his sickness. After he was gone, I didn't bother to remove them. You have the same type of curse, Sakura-chan, only more concentrated. And I have every reason to believe Zouken had something to do with it."

Losing his father had been bad enough but having Sakura snatched away by that same sickness… That line of thought cut abruptly when the boy remembered that his friend didn't show any of the symptoms. All her physical problems came from the Matou implants, which the girl reluctantly confessed to after starting their lessons.

Strangely passive and cold, Sakura submitted herself for an examination by Dietrich. His fingers trailing in gentle patterns above her skin, mouth mattering mantras, the elder Magus had a diagnosis in minutes.

"You have dormant shards within you, Sakura-chan. Your implants probably help."

"That's fine."

Long after she went home Shirou was still awake. He couldn't be a judge on the definition of normal, but he was quite sure that laughing and chiding him for every small thing five minutes after discovering she had a potentially lethal irremovable curse—that wasn't normal. Dietrich wasn't much help beyond grimacing and telling Shirou crest worms weren't enough to stabilize Sakura fully, and Zouken must have come up with something else. Something suitably horrible for the old worm.

He would probably need to go to Tohsaka for advice about Sakura, and even he knew what a swell idea that was. There was no other way, though, except for tailing the girl, and Shirou wasn't stalker material.

###

Early next morning, Shirou stood inside his Reality Marble. The boy was quite aware he wasn't there physically, but the place was real enough. It didn't take him and Gladstone long to come up with a meditation-based technique that let him plunge into his own private world.

The dimension still wasn't fully stable, but it wasn't a fog-filled sea of nothing anymore. Long silvery-green grass went up to his ankles as Shirou surveyed his domain from the top of the hill he always begun his journey on. There were no blades there: just the grass, Avalon lying on top of the hill, and the red-white light pouring from above. There was no sun; its place was taken by a colossal forge suspended in the sky. Hundreds, maybe thousands of anvils circled the forge, impossibly small compared to it. He had found he could make new blades using that monstrosity if he concentrated hard enough. Flames would surge from its mouth, a blank would fly out and get hammered into a sword on one of the anvils in one swift strike of an ethereal hammer. It then shot down from the sky and embedded itself somewhere far from the central hill.

The blades made that way inside his mind were low quality and took far too much concentration.

His world was fascinating, yet broken. In the four cardinal directions from the hilltop deep bottomless canyons split the endless plain as far as he could see. The quarters were unclear, hazy from the top of his world but as soon as he walked down onto any of them, things changed. Even the sky became different.

Two of them were relatively boring: filled with the fog Shirou had found on his first mental visit here. He supposed they hadn't had a chance to form properly yet. Even the ground under his feet couldn't decide whether it wanted to be hard or soft, covered in pebbles or giving extra spring to his step. One of those two quarters was completely empty; in the other were the more noble blades he had seen.

The most formed of the quarters was a kingdom of snow. All the ground was covered in it, and there were dunes of the stuff. Bright stars and a full moon were the only objects in the sky, the forge invisible from this position. Without a cloud in sight and the air crystal clear, that quarter looked like the Snow Queen's kingdom from an old fairytale: majestic, beautiful, glittering a quiet lullaby in the moonlight.

That was also the place where the blades with the most tragic and disturbed histories ended up. Kiritsugu once took him to an exhibition of medieval torture equipment (certainly not because his father wanted to; Shirou begged for days to see cool, weird knives, spikes and other tools maid to deliver pain and suffering), and all of that stuff ended up strewn haphazardly all over one of the many frozen lakes.

The fourth quarter had begun forming not too long ago, but it had already solidified with nary a wisp of fog in sight. It was a land of constant breeze. Distant sky was covered in dark clouds contorting in a maelstrom of the elements. Lightning lit up the dark every few seconds, and thunder galloped across the plains to assault his ears with its triumphant symphony. The other side of the sky was dominated by a perpetually setting enormous sun that bathed everything in shades of red.

This was not a quiet place: ground was littered with jagged stones and Shirou had to be cautious when walking. The bigger boulders were large enough for a grown man to hide behind and had every shape imaginable, but none of them smooth. The weapons plunged into the earth all had character and ambition. Many traditional Japanese blades that he saw during exhibitions found their way here, and some Mystic Codes too. Mostly those that were not used for outright murder or a noble purpose, but instead served the personal beliefs of their wielders, supporting and urging them on.

It was here that the Noble Phantasm rested.

Kaze no Nagare it was called—the Flow of Wind. An obscure dual katana Phantasm owned by a minor family of Magi. They had hired Dietrich to make a case that could seal its abilities. Despite being swords they were a C-rank Noble Phantasm meant for defense.

The thing about Phantasm ranks is that they are used to valuate a weapon's usefulness under normal circumstances and take into account its limitations. What was C-rank to anyone else had the potential of a B+ or even A- artefact for Shirou.

Its purpose was simple: to deflect arrows fired at the wielder. A basic ability, but it was the way the result was achieved that made it Dietrich's first choice. The Mystery was time-based, increasing the speed with which the swords moved depending on the number of bladed objects around the wielder.

When Shirou started warming up with a few simple sword forms in that world of his, they already moved a bit faster than they should have, but their true power didn't show itself until he summoned additional swords and plunged them deep into the short blood-red grass the area he used for training was covered with.

There was a reason Kaze no Nagare's rank wasn't higher: the blades didn't accelerate the wielder. As the swords went faster and faster, the heavy katanas risked breaking bones in the swordsman's arms. When there were a lot of other bladed weapons nearby, one could use the Phantasm only with considerable Reinforcement, and even then the swordsman's reaction time wasn't augmented. Overall, it was a moderately useful Noble Phantasm that could provide an edge over a group of opponents in a swordfight. Its Aria-activated ability made the swords knock out any and all projectiles fired toward its owner for a few seconds, but this invariably resulted in broken wrists and torn ligaments.

Shirou had mostly mastered Reinforcing his own body, he had the experience of the previous wielders to draw on, and he had his father's Circuits to accelerate his reaction time along with the blades.

The boy exulted in the feeling of incredible speed as he spun and weaved between imaginary opponents. Here, there were few limitations. Soon, the last Circuits would be integrated, and he would be able to try this exercise in the real world.

Shirou trained in dual wielding with some of the best masters Dietrich could persuade or coerce into teaching the boy. This meant his teachers either weren't all that good or weren't quite right in the head. As was his habit, the boy didn't think much of himself, but his betters and peers recognized just how easy it was for him to see the sword not as a separate object but as an extension of himself.

As he danced on the jagged plains of his mind, there was only wind, form, and sword. His arms burned, and both he and the Noble Phantasm moved with speed far beyond one possible for ordinary humans.

There was a singular purpose.

To let the blade express itself perfectly through him.

Chapter end notes

This chapter turned out to be mostly about building character relationships. Action and exposition come easier to me, but hey, easy doesn't mean right. The next one will be about Shirou starting to visit Clock Tower and kicking some ass and we'll also be touching on Rin and Sakura's improved training. I think the story is about three chapters away from the start of the Grail War itself.

Also, Kaze no Nagare is a Noble Phantasm that I made up. I needed something completely tailored for Shirou in order to make him surviving the beginning of the War believable (I am not giving him Rho Aias) and wasn't able to find something suitable that he or Dietrich could get their hands on, so Kaze no Nagare was born.

A small summary on Shirou's abilities at this point in the story for interested people.

 _Circuits_. According to the wiki, in the original novel Shirou has 27 Circuits each running 10 units of Prana and they are closed at the beginning (he opens up the entire thing when fighting Gilgamesh, if I recall correctly: before that it's just a bare minimum of Circuits) and using them at full capacity causes him severe pain as a result of a screwed up training regimen and neglect. In this fic he still has 27 Circuits but each is running 25 units by now and all are opened, so his reserves at the start of the conflict will be far larger than the ones Shirou had at the end of Unlimited Bladeworks route in the original.

 _Knowledge_. Shirou is getting Clock Tower-level theoretical education in this story, courtesy of Dietrich and some access to resources in London in the future. As some of you may have noticed, Dietrich is pretty much an exposition machine: I will add a bit to his character but he is here mostly for world building and will not be assisting Shirou directly during the Holy Grail War in order to avoid deus ex machina.

 _Magecraft_. Shirou is mathematically inclined and very focused in this story. He still cannot use Elemental spells properly, but everything else is possible for him, especially with his reserves. His primary focus at the start of the War will be Formalcraft and Runes.

 _Crest._ Answering a question from a guest: Shirou will have twice as many Circuits in his Crest as Kiritsugu at the end of Fate/Zero. This will be combined with Avalon to help heal the damage. You'll have to wait and see how he will use them for time-based Mysteries.

 _Reality Marble_. Right now Shirou can train there through a meditation-based technique but not much more. In the future I hope to make it a significant plot device as well an ace with restrictions attached.

 _Projection_ , _Reinforcement_ , _etc_. More power and some more restrictions. Wait and see.

Replies to some of the reviews:

BBWulf:

Oh, Shinji is the disgusting, abusive, self-absorbed prick with a severe inferiority complex that we all love to hate (and want to kill). That is, his character is canon.

Dragonjek:

Most of the tense switching was due to me confusing Present Perfect with Past Perfect in the Prologue. I have also combed through the entire story and switched everything I found to past tense. Thank you for pointing this out.

And a heartfelt thank you to everyone taking the time to write a review. I appreciate the feedback a lot.

Stay shiny.


	5. Falling Headfirst into Place

Author's Intro

I would like to thank you all for your interest. I do this for fun and to work on my creative writing skills in English, but seeing that there are so many others who enjoy my work makes me write so much more and better. Thank you.

Also, apologies for the delay. Life happened and did so in a pretty bad way. I will try to catch up and publish two more chapters by the middle of June.

Like always, I would like to thank Type-Moon and Kinoko Nasu for creating the Fate universe. They own it, not me; I'm just borrowing it for your enjoyment and no profit.

Also I would like to thank two nameless guests in the reviews. While I don't agree that I am ripping off ThirdFang's take on the magic system (a small rant regarding this at the end of the chapter), it did make me go and re-read the wiki and Magic Circuits, Heroic Spirits and Noble Phantasms.

You will notice that the Clock Tower in this chapter isn't really canon. As it isn't the focus of the visual novels and anime, I went with the bare bones and tried to make it fun.

Anyway, let's hop right in.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

 _Thoughts._

 _"_ _Arias and other Mysteries."_

 ** _"_** ** _Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."_**

Enjoy, full notes at the end of the chapter.

Falling Headfirst into Place

Shirou, being the kind of boy he was, didn't have many real passions. The usual problems of a thirteen-year-old such as acne, girls, growing sexual awareness, swinging moods and self-esteem barely bothered him. Well, the girls thing did, but not so much girls in general as the two particular ones that seemed to have taken a liking to him. Sakura was more or less fine, if you didn't count her flabbergasting disregard for herself, but Tohsaka was a veritable maelstrom of emotion and genius-logic. He mainly dealt with her by being far away whenever the fuses blew.

But some things did bother him.

"Sir, why is the Clock Tower called the Clock Tower if it's not a Clock Tower?"

The teacher grimaced, and the blond girl at the table beside his—a rather arrogant noble by the name of Luvia Edelfelt—started banging her head against the cover of her history book. The other three students in the classroom groaned in resignation.

"Now, now, calm down, class. We are discussing the history of the Association, and it is a legitimate question."

Shirou was in the middle of one of his two-weeks-long training trips to England. To everyone's surprise, whatever deal Kiritsugu had made actually worked. Perhaps the Magus Killer had been able to find some of the few trustworthy influential people, but it was more likely that it was Waver's growing influence combined with the light nature of the request that caused the agreement to be honored. Waver, now a Lord, became Shirou's patron, and few questions were asked by the faculty despite the fact that the boy didn't exactly enroll. Instead he came for a couple weeks several times a year to do what could only be described as binge learning.

The original plan had been for him to stay as unnoticeable as possible, to get what he couldn't find in Fuyuki quietly, and return home. Unfortunately, that plan had a major hole in it.

Shirou couldn't tolerate lapses in logic. It had caused him problems with the Japanese education system in the past, but the Association was much worse: excepting the few well-explored and documented areas of Magecraft, a lot of the curriculum turned out to be about barely studied fields full of murky conjecture and pure speculation. Unfortunately, history was one of those fields. It was astounding how a society allegedly headed by an immortal and one that had records dating back hundreds if not thousands of years could include so much hearsay and plain contradicting facts into their history curriculum.

Shirou would have skipped all that junk completely, but that would have made him stand out even more, so instead he turned to asking for clarifications whenever he had questions. Both the group and the young and somewhat bored teacher tried to ignore him at first but quickly found out that short of throwing him out of the room there was no way to keep the teen away from getting to the bottom of things. So, reluctantly, they endured.

Luvia had it the worst, since on the very first day she had loudly declared that she and Shirou were going to be best friends. She said she hated it when he and his weirdness made the class spend half an hour on some skippable piss of trivia but couldn't really say anything with Shirou being her proclaimed bestie.

"While it is true that the Clock Tower is not a tower nowadays, it was one in the past. Until 1941, in fact, when the Director and the head of the Barthomeloi family destroyed the original structure after moving everything underground. In the old days the Clock Tower was a mansion at the heart of London, sporting an actual Clock Tower—a magnificent one." The teacher's eyes glazed over with the mists of nostalgia. "It was warded to appear a boring, ordinary building to anyone who didn't have properly opened Circuits, but to Magi it was a beacon, promising knowledge and a safe haven." He adopted a more serious expression. "During those times not only the Association but also the less benign denizens of the supernatural world had to worry a lot less about secrecy and proper clean-up, which made a certain degree of… advertising the location useful. You could live near the Clock Tower and be sure you wouldn't wake up to find a Dead Apostle munching on your children."

The man sighed and righted his glasses.

"But technology advanced, making it possible to accomplish more and more phenomena that previously had been thought to be the domain of Magecraft. Steam power. Electricity. Radio. Planes. It became clear that very soon we wouldn't be able to hide our activities completely without spending a ridiculous amount of resources on concealment. And so, only some of the dorms and a few secondary buildings remain above while the rest is now underground, like this classroom."

"The layout is a nightmare, though. Even finding a room…" Luvia said.

The teacher chuckled.

"The complex is built upon a hub of Ley Lines, Miss Edelfelt. It was very difficult for the original builders to dig all the tunnels and the rooms without cutting those. I'm afraid, comfort was never a concern. Now, where was I before all this… Right, the current relations between the Association and the British government…"

###

Shirou liked England. Often he would walk the streets of London at night in a dark hoodie, avoiding the streetlights. He was athletic and kept a very noticeable knife under his jacket, which meant he never ran into any trouble with the criminal element. No one was interested in an armed teen in worn clothes wandering the streets. Once he had been stopped by a constable, but the blade was a Projection, and he dismissed it before being approached. He got off with some sincere advice to stay home at night.

It was a strange feeling—to be an outsider. Shirou had always been different: he was a Magus, he was deeply scarred, he was raised in an abnormal family. But this time it wasn't just that. In Fuyuki he felt entwined: Dietrich, school, Sakura and Rin, his studies, the upcoming Holy Grail War… Without noticing it, he had formed bonds with the city and the people living in it. Without knowing, he had come to look at himself through the roles he played: a student, a friend, a little brother, a… whatever he was to the girls in his life.

Being literally on the other side of the Earth he felt profoundly disconnected from everything. When a foggy morning (cloyingly humid and chilling to the bone) found him wandering the streets, there no longer were any thoughts or desires. The blades in his mind turned slowly and sang softly their quiet lullaby of steel in a murky world that was silently happy to have him in it.

###

In a way, Luvia singling him out for some reason was fortunate. The girl had a lot more rounded out education than him, and she was a rare breed of modern Magus: despite not aspiring to become an Enforcer of Sealing Designations, she was interested in using Mysteries for combat, because the Edelfelts were a mercenary family. He supposed he got lucky, because even among the faculty very few were polite toward him. Most Magi flat-out ignored him.

Luvia was different. There is always a respect among professionals of any craft, and even if the Edelfelts weren't focused on ruthless, calculated assassination as the Magus Killer had been, they still didn't mind getting their hands dirty and freely used jewel-based Mysteries to curse someone half-to-death. Of course, people tended to resist when you tried to incapacitate them, so this led to techniques geared toward killing. Whether murder actually happened or not depended solely on the target's competence.

This was why they ate lunch in an empty corner of a cafeteria. Due to the Clock Tower being an underground labyrinth of awkward corridors and weirdly shaped rooms, the complex had several places you could eat at. Add the fact that most Magi valued their time far too much (and their health–far too little) to chew properly and the fact that the place was pretty exclusive… All in all, there weren't that many people and everyone worked irregular hours and thus had lunch at a different time.

Luvia was going through one of her signature rants, gesticulating wildly with a French fry.

"I mean, a little appreciation would not hurt. We do all the dirty work, families like hours. Sure, we get paid well; my family invests in gems. Did Kiritsugu leave you much money?"

Shirou had discovered early on that bluntness never particularly bothered him in people. It saved time.

"Yes, quite a bit. My type of practice requires a lot of money for materials and items too. I'm happy I have Dietrich to help decide what to get."

Luvia grinned.

"I cannot believe I've found a Magus who wants to both make weapon Mystic Codes and use them and not be an Enforcer for the Association. Not that I don't think people who wade through a sea of undead and burn that and other such filth to ashes don't do an important job… It's just, if you have the power, try and combine earning money with trying to do some good, helping a little."

Shirou had been a little distracted by how terrible the stew he was eating tasted, but he perked up at where the conversation was going.

"You think it's not enough to cut out obvious evil?"

The girl shook her head.

"Look, my family has been doing this for a very, very long time. Sure, some things just need to die, but in most places where there is great injustice or where monsters take up residence, things are not that simple. Since you are so nitpicky about history…" She grinned as she tended to when showing her superiority. "There is this great discussion in mundane history regarding whether a single person can really leave a significant mark on the long-term state of things. Do you know how many examples there are when that really happened? When somebody not simply filled a role that needed to be filled but did something that was considered impossible with truly lasting repercussions?"

"How many?"

"Two. Two times: with Alexander the Conqueror and Genghis Khan. One spread the Hellenic culture to territories where there was none, the other—the Asian values. Literally took the weakest of the barbarian Mongol tribes and built an empire that spanned a continent and left a huge imprint on the culture of Asia and Eastern Europe."

"What about Napoleon, the Founding Fathers, Tokugawa Shogunate? Legends like Zelretch, for that matter?"

"Well, our history has more such figures, obviously. Mostly because of the level of power some Magi, Mages, Dead Apostles, and others wield personally. But most historical shifts are a thing of necessity: the society needs a dictatorship to survive, so a dictator appears. It outgrows that stage, and the regime is disposed of one way or another. Advances in the study of Magecraft are similar. A lot of time the same conclusions are independently reached by rival families."

"Interesting."

"What I'm saying, my darling Shirou, is that injustice, cruelty and evil fill a vacant spot in a society. There are people too blind to bother to check whether they are being exploited or fed upon." Each point was followed by a tap. "Areas where Magi think they can just shut off from the world and work on their pet projects while darkness encroaches upon their territory. People desiring violence and chaos to give meaning to their lives. And no matter how many times you kill them, a new monster will always take their place. Our employers are rarely smart enough to hire us to do something about the root of the problem, which is why people like us or Enforcers? We will never run out of work."

Shirou paused, thinking of Kotomine Kirei, the empty, cruel man that he had heard only bad things about, both from Tohsaka and his father.

"But what if there is a man, whose only delight is orchestrating the suffering of others?"

"Oh, my darling, I'm not saying you should move to a monastery and spend your life meditating on the lotus or some other such tripe. By all means, do what you can to improve the lives of those around you. Maybe the state of things actually calls for a change, and you will be able to do some good." She scoffed. "I mean, it's one thing to look at the history of humanity in the terms of hundreds or thousands of years but another thing entirely to live a life. It doesn't matter to history whether the needed change happens today or ten years from now, but it matters to us."

Shirou cocked his head.

"You are much deeper than you look, Luvia-san."

The girl blushed a little, laughed haughtily and quickly returned to talking about how great her family was.

###

"Wait, your friend uses what?"

"Bugs. Insects. Her family can do a bunch of stuff with them, including implantation and being a host to a swarm. Works like extra Circuits from what I figure."

"Ewww. Just… ewww. Talk about needing protection for a date. That's why I love gems. Beside the fact that they are the most beautiful thing in the world, of course. No one would be dumb enough to put one inside and have it shatter. Although, now that I think about it…"

"You are weird, Luvia-san."

###

Shirou got his first tour of the Clock Tower armory when he was fifteen. It took him and Waver more than a year to get the needed permissions. The new Lord El-Melloi had to be subtle about pushing for greater access for his protégé, and Shirou himself had to work extra hard during the time he spent in England. Intensive study of Mystic Codes, sucking up to the faculty, recommendations from both Dietrich and Waver… One and a half year of this, and he was finally about to be shown the less secret items the Enforcers used.

To be honest, Shirou had been worried they wouldn't make it in time. Normally it took about five years of general studies for a full-time student to even start pursuing specialized studies with one of the Departments at the Tower—an amount of time they didn't have. Also, the kind of items stored at the Tower were ones that Enforcers couldn't risk getting stolen from personal Workshops, so getting access wasn't supposed to be easy or even possible for a teenage Magus. It was mostly due to Waver slowly turning the Department of Modern Magecraft Theories into a power to be reckoned with (and also in no small part because of the vice-director being friendly-ish with him on occasion) that parties in power suddenly wanted to have El-Melloi in their debt. Helping Shirou, the adopted son of the nefarious Magus Killer, was a good idea to get some black into their books at low cost.

Bazett Fraga led the tour, which Shirou was grateful for. He did very little in London except study anything combat- or Holy Grail-related and do physical training. He had met Fraga maybe a year before, during one of his workout sessions with Luvia. The girl had far better unarmed combat technique, which made him push his Reinforcement to its absolute limit. There were other people training or doing light spars in the room at that time, but only the Irish Enforcer spotted how different his level of Reinforcement was from Luvia's.

By that point Shirou had long since moved past strengthening only his muscles. He and Dietrich had found a way to toughen bones and to make skin more resistant to damage. One of the very few achievements he was personally proud of was being able to Reinforce his eyes. Traditionally, Magi avoided going near their sensory organs with Mysteries, quite reasonably fearful of going deaf or blind. It was one thing to end up with a deep scar in your thigh, and another entirely to have said scar where your eyes used to be.

Bazett picked up on how Shirou's Reinforcement went way beyond what was thought reasonable. The woman's skills were leaps and bounds above his own, but he still had something to offer. The Irish Enforcer favored Runes and turning her clothes into Mystic Codes, which was interesting to Shirou. He had no doubt he would need all the protection he could get during the coming War and stopping things with enchanted apparel of some sort sounded much better than doing it with his ribcage.

Bazett was also one of his channels for distributing what he knew about the problems with the Grail System among the people at the Tower. The second was Luvia, who was reasonably good at gossip among students. Getting the message across to the Enforcer was more important, though, in case the Association sent another Lord or a professional combat Magus when the Grail War came. He had to be careful not to reveal too much in order to keep the Tower from doing something very stupid and dangerous to Fuyuki ley lines, but he could share what his father knew about the Church being far from impartial during the previous War. At the very least, he needed to minimize Kotomine Kirei's influence on the Association during the next conflict.

With all of this going on, the only reason he hadn't flunked the tests was because of Dietrich tutelage. They had mostly covered the first two years of study and even if Shirou's education had holes the size of Primate Murder's eye in it, it was enough to pass the exams. Which meant he really had no excuse not to try and get allies at the Tower, no matter how much he detested politics.

"I've looked into Kotomine Kirei despite my better judgement.» said Bazett. «There is nothing suspicious about him, except for the early retirement from being an Executor."

While they talked, Shirou walked around the dim-lit room, using Structural Analysis on anything he saw. There were at least a hundred Codes on the shelves and some of the more prominent ones were displayed in glass cases.

"This sword is weird. Can't quite get what it does…"

"Good eyes, Shirou. It's called the Blade of Limited Perspective, it can be used to manifest the metaphorical bonds between Master and Familiar into physical strings of Prana and cut them."

"Sounds useful."

The teen leaned towards the case and started tracing his fingers along the surface, lips moving silently as he absorbed everything he could about the sword.

"Do you think it can be used to sever a bond between a Master and a Servant?"

Bazett snorted and said, "You are too smart to ask that. From what I've looked up that bond is far more than just Mana flow. At best it will cut the Mana stream for a minute or two before it is reformed. As Heroic Spirits have their own consciousness and can all survive for hours without an external power source… Won't do much good."

"So only normal familiars. Doesn't seem that useful now. Why was it created then?"

"As a potential countermeasure against Nrvnqsr Chaos."

"I remember this from one of the lectures. The Dead Apostle Ancestor that is made up of 666 Beasts."

"The very same, but he is reported dead now, which is why this blade is in a glass case and not on a shelf—it's an exhibit, not a weapon. Anyway, about Kotomine?"

"Of course you didn't find anything. Among the Masters of the previous war only Kotomine Kirei himself and Waver El Melloi still live. And because the Overseer was Kotomine's father, nothing suspicious went on record."

"Sounds awfully convenient."

"I can always arrange for you to check with Lord El Melloi."

"How did you get such pull with him anyway?"

"It's more the other way around. Diring the last War an entire block of Fuyuki got burned to the ground and at one point there was a building-sized monster threatening to destroy the town."

"Sounds like the plot of 'Godzilla'."

"Right. And the Servant that destroyed it? Nobody actually saw him die."

At this point Shirou had to stop talking as his brain was starting to overheat. The spacious room around him stood a testament to the imagination and resourcefulness of Magi. While most of them were nowhere near as powerful as, say, Dead Apostles (freakish exceptions like the current vice-director didn't count), mystics compensated for it by being prepared. Inside their own workshop, with a supply of Prana and charged up Mystic Codes, a Magus could be quite dangerous even to the most horrifying of monsters.

Only about a third of the items were bladed weapons of some sort, and so only they could be directly used by him through Tracing. He still examined the rest for interesting effects. Most were pretty straightforward: clothes with added protection against piercing and fire, weapons that caught on flame when you channeled Mana into them… A heavy cloak got his attention.

"What does this one do?"

"They called them Cloaks of Invisibility back in the day. Doesn't make you truly invisible but does a pretty good job of suppressing smell a sound and diffusing your Mana signature all over the place."

"Ambush tool?"

"Something like that. Why do you insist on telling me all this about the Holy Grail War? Honestly, I couldn't care less."

"The last time the Association sent a representative. There is no reason why this time will be any different; with only three founding families there are four spots open. It's likely I will participate as I am pretty much a product of the last War. When the time comes I would like whoever comes to Japan from here to keep their eyes open. There is much more wrong with the whole system than I can tell you—"

"And why is that?"

"It's unsubstantiated. There isn't much I can prove, but don't you think it's strange how we haven't heard of a wish getting fulfilled despite there having been, what, four Wars already? Makes you wonder whether the system has been tampered with to serve some other purpose."

"Hm. You know, I've worked with your father a time or two. At first I didn't quite see it, but now I see the resemblance. It's the paranoia."

"Thank you."

###

Cooking was one of the things Shirou really enjoyed along with archery, mathematics and, of course, Magecraft. This combination of interests didn't do much good when it came to getting friends his own age. Issei didn't count as he pretty much despised people who built a certain reputation simply for the sake of social status. There was a certain irony that the president of the student council cared this much about authenticity. It was also the reason why you couldn't get Ryuudou and Tohsaka into the same room without inviting a torrent of thinly-veiled barbs upon everyone in the vicinity.

Shirou liked structure, logic and laws that could be explored, if not directly derived. In his spare time, he read a few philosophy books and decided that he was both a rationalist and an empirist. The first part shone when he solved math problems because there was no room for chance there; the second—when he cooked. Cooking required intuition, but to him it was an empiric science. The teen kept meticulous journals detailing each particular composition of ingredients, each process he applied, each dish he cooked, how it tasted, and his thoughts as to why he got that particular taste, odor, and appearance.

For his fourteenth birthday Dietrich did a pretty solid attempt of convincing his apprentice to celebrate it at a restaurant for a change. As a compromise, Shirou decided to go out with Shinji the day before the main celebration. By then he was reasonably sure that putting Sakura in one room with her brother when not absolutely necessary was not a good idea. Sakura almost never spoke of her family, and when she did, her emotions where mixed at best.

So they went out. Shinji somehow got a pair of classmates to go with them, rented out a karaoke, and smuggled some booze inside. There was something fascinating about how his friend just plowed on in complete disregard for what would make Shirou himself comfortable. All the more impressive because it was Shirou's birthday. Overall it was weird, awkward, and quite a bit embarrassing when they had to leave, and Shinji was swaying on his feet (somehow, Emiya kept the girls from drinking anything beyond one sip which only led to Matou getting even more drunk). Thankfully for Shirou, the party had lasted several hours and Avalon helped combat the slow trickle of alcohol. He couldn't let the other boy drink all of it, or he'd have to carry his drunk friend back to his household. And he didn't want to see just why Sakura was that scared of her grandfather.

The main celebration was the next day, which happened to be a weekend. As Shirou didn't remember anything form his early childhood, his birthday held more of a symbolic significance. His father and him could think of nothing better than to place it on the day he was found in the fire.

Sakura had arrived about three hours in advance, having brought a dress with her. In that quiet manner she possessed, the girl donned an apron and assisted Shirou with practiced ease. The cake had been made the day before, but everything else needed to be either warm or fresh by the point the other guests arrived. It took a fair bit of convincing to make sure Taiga didn't show up early and gobble up all the food into that bottomless interdimensional rift she called her stomach.

As is often the norm for celebrations in Japan, they cooked meat. To show off, Shirou had picked pleskavitsa as the main course, a traditional Serbian patty made from processed meat, onions, hard cheese, and fresh basil.

His friend tsk-ed as she tried to chop the cheese into tiny, equal cubes.

"Senpai, I know the knife is sharp, but it won't cut."

"You shouldn't use an ordinary knife for cheese. Because the surface is completely flat it creates suction and gets stuck. Try a knife with a saw-like blade, the one we sometimes use for small bones. It's on the right."

The girl laughed in embarrassment, pouted, and her cheeks went slightly pink.

"And just when I thought I had you beat at Western foods, senpai."

Her tone was light and teasing, but Shirou's reply was level and direct, as was his habit when he was working.

"Honestly, I think you have more talent for cooking than me. But that's irrelevant, Sakura." He was silent for a while before continuing. "You are good for an amateur, but if you want to move beyond that level, you need to keep a journal detailing what kind of ingredients you use, how much, what type of processing you subject them to." He snapped his fingers. "Your family is rich, right? Get a camera and a tripod, record how you cook, so you can fast-forward later."

Sakura actually giggled at this.

"You forget most Magi don't use electronics, senpai. If my grandfather still has a heart, he might have a heart attack. And you don't use a camera, senpai."

"I have very good memory. I just record everything after I'm done cooking. But I do use a kitchen scale, even when I think I can guess the right quantity, and a timer for all the baking, boiling, and stuff. Improvement requires experimentation."

Sakura just shook her head and kept working. A couple minutes of relative silence passed.

"Here, the cheese is done. You know, I envy you, senpai. You approach Magecraft exactly the same way, don't you? Always dragging a huge journal to lessons, double-checking everything Dietrich teaches us. You actually made Tohsaka-senpai study more than she did by herself, you know that? She doesn't say anything, but I think she's mad that you have somehow got access to the Clock Tower."

"She really shouldn't be. Not like I want to be there: it's just necessary."

"Which only makes her madder. But I think it's good for her; she told me she has already finished the basic curriculum that that priest had for her and is now working more on Elemental Mysteries."

"Good. She will need it soon."

"We need to tell her."

Stopping the process of mixing the mincemeat with the other ingredients, Shirou sighed.

"Look, we've talked about this, alright? I personally don't see a problem with telling her the truth, but Dietrich thinks it will be too much." His eyes gained a far-off look. "Her father gave his life, sacrificed his family, left a mansion and a household in the hands of the man who probably had him killed—and for what? Right now she thinks it was to reach the Root." Shirou laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'm not the biggest expert on psychology, but isn't that what keeps her going? Should we tell her that it was all a great joke, and the only way the Grail would fulfill such a wish would be by wiping a couple cities off the map to gather the necessary energy?"

Sakura was looking at her clasped hands, refusing to look Shirou in the eye. Her answer came in such a small voice that somebody less perceptive wouldn't have caught it.

"He was my father too, you know."

The boy rubbed the bridge of his nose in what had become a bad habit of his. Was it too much to think that at least on his birthday his life would be free of curveballs?

"I had my suspicions. You two smell almost the same."

This time Sakura had no problem with meeting his eyes. She stared at him for a few seconds and then laughed heartily.

"Do we? Who needs paternity tests when you have Shirou Emiya and his magical nose."

The boy couldn't help but cringe. It was bad enough Tohsaka had been making fun of the way he perceived Mana, but to have Sakura join in too…

"No, no, I'm sorry, senpai. It is kind of a sore point, but what's in the past is in the past."

And she smiled a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

 _Right... I'd need to be braindead and mindfucked to believe her. But that is a topic I'm not bringing up today. Maybe not ever._

Dietrich was out doing some sort of 'preparations', and Tohsaka was the next to arrive with Issei hot on her heels.

"I'm telling you, if you actually got involved even an evil, heartless, fake witch like you could do some good,» said Issei «I mean, what is the point of being the best in your grade if you plan to go into family business after school?"

"I could ask you the very same thing, Issei-kun."

"Don't try to turn this around, you vixen. I want to become a monk to inspire and help people. A student council president is good preparation, and what kind of an inspiration would I be if my grades weren't one of the best? What is it that your family does, anyway?"

"Mainly, owns land."

"How the hell is that even a job? It's like saying you grow grass for a living!"

It was at this point that they stepped into the main room, and Shirou greeted his friends from kitchen.

"Hello, Issei, Tohsaka. Can't you two cut it out? At least today? Please?"

At least, his guests had the good manners to blush and apologize.

###

It was some time after Shirou's fifteenth birthday that hereto the most bizarre episode of his life happened.

Shinji Matou suffered an unfortunate accident falling down the stairs in his very own home. In another parallel world he could have lived to an old age if the stars aligned right. Unfortunately for the arrogant, hedonistic, and self-obsessed youth, in this timeline Sakura spent far more time in the Emiya household and trained both in Magecraft and physical strength up to the point where she could sometimes give even Tohsaka a decent fight. She also started feeling something resembling humanity and not being a broken toy, which didn't bode well for her brother.

One time, after spending a night out and not sleeping at all Shinji was in a poor enough shape to be the only one in the class to flunk an English exam. The very girls with whom he had paraded around town chuckled at his troubles, and to someone of Matou's pride it was enough to place him in a very foul mood. The teen needed some special stress relief.

So, despite the fact that Sakura didn't need stabilization for another week at least, after getting home and making sure that Zouken wasn't there, he grabbed his sister by the hair and dragged her to the bedroom. Or would have, had Sakura not been having a couple very bad days herself with Tohsaka hugging more and more of Shirou's attention by working on developing blades according to the blueprints she had gifted the teenage Magus for his birthday.

Victims of repeated abuse normally feel terrified and hopeless against their abusers even if they have the actual power to resist. Maybe they have resisted in the past, and it just made things so much worse. But everyone can snap.

When Zouken got home, he heard the screams of his grandson and the calm, soothing voice of Sakura.

"A-A-A-A! I can't feel my legs, I can't feel anything! Get away, get away!"

"Shhh… Onii-san, don't worry it will be alright. Your sister will take good care of you, just as you have taken good care of me."

When the patriarch of the family turned a corner he saw Sakura sitting on the floor at the bottom of the stairs and cradling Shinji's head in her lap, the boy's neck bent at a strange angle.

"You are insane! They will put you away for life!"

"Oh, grandfather, welcome home. Onii-san seems to be in pain, can you help?"

Unceremoniously, Zouken taped the mouth of his good-for-nothing grandson shut and talked to Sakura. She kept insisting it was an accident, and that she didn't need her brother's help and would find another way to keep herself sane and stable. She didn't seem that stable or even sane at the moment, but her mental health wasn't something that had ever bothered Zouken. Only functionality mattered.

Sure, her grandfather could have called in a few favors and found someone to cure Shinji's paralysis, but he had serious doubts the boy would keep his mouth shut. Moreover, nothing would prevent Sakura from helping another 'accident' occur. The girl was physically stronger than Shinji with his lack of sleep, no physical training, and the drinking habit the twerp had acquired when he was about thirteen.

Shinji screamed something into the tape.

"Oh, shut up, you waste of genes» said Zouken. «You should thank your sister that she wants you to stay alive. Make sure he doesn't talk."

The latter part was aimed at a basement room filled with a writhing, agitated mass of crest worms, which seemed rather excited at having something new to play with.

For the first time in her life, Sakura wasn't the one to go into the pit. She didn't feel the usual numb, nauseating terror that came with the anticipation. No, as her grandfather tossed her brother into hell, she felt nothing. Well, maybe a bit of contempt and sickeningly sweet taste of revenge.

That night, Shinji truly became a vegetable. The worms ate at his nerves and energies until the damage had become such that he couldn't move a single muscle anymore. Trapped inside his own brain with no way to communicate with the outside world, he was transferred into a hospital and put on life support. He still could hear, see, and understand what the doctors and nurses talked about but the lack of any way to reciprocate made it so much worse.

Sakura came to her dear brother once a week to read him the newspaper and cheerfully talk about her life. Inside Shinji's skull oceans of rage were slowly supplanted by a multitude of faint hysteric whispers.

###

The problem with Sakura's plan, as with all acts of desperation, was lack of of forethought. Sure, she was at an age when she could actually enter in a sexual relationship with a classmate, but being the victim of repeated rape put a damper on her chances of getting some healthy fun. Time passed while the girl procrastinated, and she got more and more weird looks from Tohsaka. Sakura grew more unstable and aggressive. Meanwhile, her terror at what her grandfather would do to keep her from going completely off the kilter steered her thoughts in a romantic, but desperate screwed up direction.

She jumped Shirou after holding out for about a week and a half. Dietrich was out, and they were supposed to go over their knowledge of runes in order to come up with enchanted fabric that would act as a Prana barrier for a Familiar. Something of a pet project Rin insisted upon after learning that her grandfather could do whatever the hell he wanted with Sakura's body because of the control he exerted over the worms inside her. The plan was to come up with a way to cut the connection long enough to do something about the damn Familiars inside Sakura.

Returning to the issue that plagued Shirou at that precise moment. One second he was going over the associations that the rune Algiz invoked, and the next he suddenly found his eyes full of purple hair and his mouth having two tongues in it instead of one. The teen flailed around wondering what the hell Sakura was doing, why her face was so red, and which meanings of the rune he had missed.

Just when a frightened, ashamed but very determined Sakura threw off her blouse, Tohsaka walked into the room.

It spoke something about the Matou's state of mind that she had been so focused on what she believed to be the best solution to her situation, she didn't recall think that her sister always followed her to Emiya's household these days.

They were in Shirou's room at the moment and the reaction was quite natural and very Tohsaka. Seeing her younger sister being snogged by the teen (it is notoriously difficult to determine the initiator of snogging when said snogging is occurring) she calmly took a wooden club off the weapon wall, walked up to the pair, and cocked Shirou on the head, throwing the boy into unconsciousness.

When the Magus came to, he found himself facing a livid Tohsaka and a very embarrassed Sakura sitting in front of him. A sledgehammer was pounding in his head, and he was lying on his side.

Rising into a sitting position, Shirou said, "What a weird dream to have…"

And then he noticed the club Rin was fondly stroking in her lap and the fact that he could actually see a bit of Sakura's bra due to her blouse not being fastened properly.

"Okay, can I kill him now, Sakura? I waited until he woke up like you asked, but no man survives groping my sister!"

"Ermm… Nee-san, I sort of groped him?"

Tohsaka turned to the violet-haired girl. "Explain."

Sakura fidgeted. "You remember about the last Holy Grail war, Tohsaka-senpai?"

"Of course I remember. Our father died in it."

Shirou watched the exchange as the pain in his temples slowly receded.

"Is it the shards?" he asked.

Sakura nodded. Tohsaka looked from one to the other and couldn't hold back anymore.

"IF NOBODY WILL TELL ME THE FULL STORY HEADS WILL ROLL! AND I AM IN A ROOM FULL OF SWORDS SO START TALKING!"

"Actually, I am much more proficient with those blades, so…"

Tohsaka levelled Shirou with a petrifying glare of such intensity that he suddenly found himself much less sure of being able to fight her, even with all his skill and the room being his Workshop. All the while, Sakura grew redder and redder, trying to gather her courage. The killing intent she felt from her sister toward her crush was what finally pushed her to confess.

"The former Grail… I have pieces of it in me. It destabilizes my Prana."

"And how do you do that? With meditation and prayer?"

Tohsaka's sister went scarlet and her answer came in such a small voice it could barely be registered.

"With sex…"

Rin blinked. Then blinked again. Then looked from Shirou to Sakura and back. Blinked again. Put two and two together.

"YOU HAVE BEEN SLEEPING WITH MY BABY SISTER?! I WILL KILL YOU!"

Somehow, Matou managed to interpose herself between them, preventing Tohsaka from assaulting Shirou all the while shaking her head and flailing her arms as hard as she could.

"No, no, no, this was the first time. My brother helped before!"

And the room grew dead silent. Sakura blanched realizing what she had just blurted out. Tohsaka fell on her knees with a thump, her eyes the size of saucers. Shirou just froze for a moment and then summoned a small curvy knife into his hand and pricked a finger. The pain proved that it wasn't some fucked up dream-nightmare caused by overthinking his relationship with the girls and reading gratuitous smut out of academic interest. There was pain, there was blood—what he was hearing was real.

He sighed, rose to his feet, walked up behind Sakura, and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, causing the girl to yelp and jump a little.

"I think you should tell us everything, Sakura. And I think it is time we told Tohsaka the truth about the Grail."

The next half an hour was perhaps the most embarrassing and awkward time in Shirou's life. As desensitized as he was to normal human emotions, even he could tell that the level of inappropriateness in the room was such that you could cut it with a knife, butter the horrors Sakura spoke about with it, and then die of food poisoning after trying to force it down your throat. Tohsaka actually had to excuse herself to the bathroom when Matou training was described in detail.

When Sakura was done, the room was silent again.

"That is some fucked up shit." Rin looked like a storm cloud. With her training, lightning was a real possibility.

"A good summary,» said Shirou. «I don't really understand the concept of rape, but I imagine losing control of your body like that was unpleasant."

"Unpleasant?! Shirou, you unfeeling…"

Sakura sharply cut off her sister.

"That's enough, Tohsaka-senpai. Shirou is Shirou. Yes, it was bad but the fact that I would die without it helped a bit. I understand why my grandfather condoned it—"

"Sakura—"

"No, nee-san. It's true. I was a child, my body was defiled with worms and remains of an unholy curse, how do you picture a relationship with me in it? Who in their right mind would get involved?"

"I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that you actually have pieces of a Grail lodged in side you,» said Tohsaka. «And the whole curse thing. To think I have spent most of my life working on reaching the goal that eluded our father to find that it is tainted beyond any hope of use."

Shirou said, "So that is why you moved on me? It is either this or going insane?"

Growing red again, Sakura nodded.

"And you have no one else to turn to?"

The girl shook her head vehemently. Shirou rubbed the bridge of his nose before turning to Tohsaka resolutely.

"I would ask you to go home early, Rin. It appears we have no other choice. Sakura, how often do you need it?"

"I can last maybe two and a half weeks… If I want to stay completely rational, then about once a week."

Tohsaka looked dead-on at Shirou before snapping.

"Wait the fuck up, Emiya! What the hell do you mean, there is no choice! And Sakura, are you gonna just go with it?"

The boy cocked his head, expression of complete incomprehension upon his face.

"I don't see what the big deal is. Friends are supposed to help each other, right? I have nothing against it. I don't think Sakura is 'unclean' and besides, when she kissed me it was kind of pleasant. Like biting a ripe tomato."

Completely sure that he had explained everything, Shirou turned to Sakura.

"I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to go, but do you have a condom?"

He certainly didn't think he would be having that sort of conversation when he woke up that morning. Judging by the fact that Sakura looked like she was about to die from embarrassment, neither did she.

"I'm on birth control…"

Tohsaka, excluded from the conversation, facepalmed.

"Of course you are."

Then she got up, walked to the door, locked it, turned towards the two of them and started unbuttoning her blouse.

"Might as well get to it."

"Tohsaka? What the hell are you doing?"

Rin's cheeks started to go pink, but she wasn't about to back down.

"It is a medical procedure, right?"

"Pretty much."

"And both of you need to feel good for it to work, right?"

"Still don't see where you are going with this."

"Well, I need to make sure it doesn't turn all lovey-dovey! I mean, it is my responsibility too! That's it! As the heir to the Tohsaka name, I have a moral obligation to clean up the messes left by my ancestors!"

The fervor disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared, she added in a small voice accompanied by a full-blown blush:

"And I think I can help."

Shirou didn't really mind either way. The word 'inappropriate' was foreign to his analytical mind when it came to people doing something they all wanted. He could easily understand why rape was wrong from an intellectual standpoint but not everything else. The argument that some gender or fetish combinations were unnatural or disgusting was null and void for the boy. Seeing as Tohsaka made her intentions quite clear, he walked to the wardrobe, took out a pair of futons he had there, and started unrolling them.

"I remember reading it hurts on a hard surface if not done right."

There was just one thing left to confirm.

"Sakura, you okay with this?"

The girl had so much blood going to her head and face, Shirou seriously worried about her fainting or having a stroke. Still, she nodded.

"Something occurs to me. I mean, I don't even know, whether you can call this consent, as you don't have any choice, Sakura… Maybe better—"

"I want this, senpai," said Sakura.

"Shut up and take off your clothes, Emiya," said Tohsaka.

For the second time in his life, a very enthusiastic girl assaulted Shirou's mouth. His last coherent thought was that the sisters tasted alike too.

###

Since that day his life changed. He checked Japanese laws and the books he had on appropriate comportment for Magi, found out they weren't doing anything they could be prosecuted for either by the civilian or the mystical justice system, and threw the whole issue out of his head. To him, doing what he could to keep a friend sane and safe felt natural. He might have had a problem if Issei had similar issues, but due to the fact that his body didn't seem to find men attractive for some reason and not because he had a moral problem with sleeping with whomever to save their life.

The teen, however, quickly became aware why most of the books he read on the subject of relationships (to help him adjust and blend in better) insisted that keeping sex strictly casual for any length of time was difficult, if not impossible. The first two of three times were more or less medical: satisfying Sakura, cleaning up, getting back into their clothes, and continuing about their business. But only the first two or three times.

For some weird reason, Tohsaka grew more and more irritated with each time until she finally snapped and pretty much appropriated Shirou for the rest of the evening, incoherently grumbling something about fairness and using legitimate medical conditions as an excuse to get some. He didn't really mind even if he didn't get why she was so upset.

They later introduced cuddling. Zouken had allowed Sakura to stay at his house in the past, and it wasn't like Tohsaka had anywhere to go. Shirou explained the situation to Dietrich and if the German Magus had a problem with his adopted son basically dating and sleeping with his two other teenage apprentices, he didn't show it. Everything seemed set for their first active sleepover. Shirou had a nagging feeling that he was missing something but was very soon distracted by two temperamental—one pouty and one aggressive—young women demanding his attention, so he let it go.

He shouldn't have.

That was on Saturday, and Sunday started with Shirou waking up to horrible, ungodly racket shaking the house. It sounded like a hurricane, meeting steelworks factory, meeting two herds of elephants copulating while overdosed on Viagra.

While the sound was intolerable, the fact that he woke up with a naked Sakura, who had possessively wrapped her arms and legs around him during the night, compensated for it somewhat. He hesitated, contemplating whether to check for the source of the disturbance or grab Sakura and run. He might have done the latter, purely for safety's sake, had Tohsaka been in the room, but she seemed to be somewhere else and he couldn't quite leave her with the monster. Perhaps, the Holy Grail War had started last night and they didn't notice? Although, where was the smell of Prana then?

Ten seconds later Taiga flew into his room dragging a very sleepy, almost zombie-like Tohsaka behind her. Tohsaka, who had only a half-buttoned shirt on her. Which was glaringly Shirou's.

If Taiga had been livid before, she went ballistic after seeing a completely naked and red all over Sakura on top of similarly lacking in clothes nonchalant Shirou.

"SHIROU, WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK?! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT HAREMS?! WHERE THE HELL DID NEE-SAN GO SO WRONG?! AND SAKURA!"

Then she added in a quieter voice.

"I am a failure as a sister and a teacher… It's always the quiet and the polite ones…"

He knew he had forgotten something.

Some of their neighbors thought they heard the start of an earthquake that day. The sort of sound made by distant skyscrapers toppling and falling to the ground in a mangled heap of screeching concrete and steel.

###

It took hours to calm the raging tiger of Fuyuki. Reassurance, cajoling, bribery with food, internet searches on laws… Eventually Dietrich was able to persuade Fujimura to keep silent, as, while his son's relationship with the Tohsaka and Matou heirs was unorthodox, everybody was happy and wasn't that the most important thing?

It took Taiga a week of sick leave and a bit of a bender to come to terms with the fact that her little brother had gotten so comfortable with sex before the age of fifteen that he had already moved on to threesomes. After the wave of scantily clad rage had gone through the bars of Fuyuki, constantly spouting something about 'not losing to upstart nymphomaniacs' (and giving a major headache to the Yakuza trying to keep her safe), Fujimura was able to regain her composure.

But from that day she demanded twice the food from Shirou.

###

"Damn it, I never wanted kids and somehow I've ended up with three of you. You know, Shirou, I'm tempted to bring Kiritsugu back from the dead just to punch him in the face for what he managed to pile on me." Dietrich was not whining. He was complaining with dignity and flair. "I was the best of my class in Clock Tower, did you know that? Grew up an orphan, did my damnedest to become apprenticed to a Lord, dedicated my life to the study of Mystic Codes. When the Tower wanted to bury me in obligations, I went to the wonderful Orient." He laughed. "It really helped that in China I was pretty much a second-rate person and nobody wanted to wrap me up in anything. Lived a life, got some friends, always protected my reputation… everything was going fine right up to the point when I suddenly got a call from the infamous Magus Killer. Curses, magical artefacts the likes of which I've never seen. A boy with abilities so rare, there probably isn't another Magus like that in the world. Access to money, help with transferring my workshop. And all I needed was to look after one brat." Dietrich shook his head, a rueful smile on his lips. "Not even look after. Really, just nudge in the right direction because the boy was pretty much self-sufficient. And look at me now: I have an adopted son and you two… with how much time I've poured into you, you are pretty much adopted daughters. How the hell did this happen?"

It was the night that Dietrich was leaving. The Grail was almost charged, the Circles had been drawn. All that remained was to wait for the beginning of the War, summon Servants, and try not to die. They held a dinner at the Emiya household to see their teacher off. The teacher, who was getting more drunk by the minute.

Dietrich peered into the glass of brandy he was holding as if the answer to life's mysteries could be found in how the light played with the amber liquid.

"But I suppose that's life: always throwing you a curveball just when you become content, eh? A Mystic Code specialist won't be much help during the War and I have other obligations."

There was a sound of a car driver honking a horn outside.

"And here comes one of them. I have left you a box with some defensive Codes that you can use in a pinch. They are very expensive, and I swear to Root, if you use them and deplete them or, worse, break them I will make you work off every damn penny. Just don't die, the three of you, please. You are way too young for this shit to kill you."

Swaying on his feet a bit, Gladstone hugged Shirou, Rin, and Tohsaka and went outside where a dark, expensive car was waiting for him. A tall and striking brunette was by the passenger's door, hands folded under an impressive chest. Dietrich walked up to her, took one last glance at Shirou waving to him from the doorway and at the girls, the both of whom were silent for now, sighed, and got in the car.

When they were already well on their way to leaving Fuyuki, the blue-eyed beauty behind the driving wheel spoke.

"So that's Shirou."

"Yes."

"You know I could probably help."

"Kiritsugu wanted him to deal with this himself. And if you help, it will invite too much attention. The Grail is mostly an under-wraps thing, publicize just what it is and who knows who will come."

The woman grinned teasingly.

"I've heard the Seventh of the Burial Agency is a Magus of considerable power. Fighting her could be fun."

"If by 'fun' you mean the years we will spend cleaning up the wreckage of the city, then yes, fun. Anyway, thanks for helping me get those items for the kids."

"Nah, Gladstone, don't mention it. I was bored anyway. Who knew you'd suddenly become a proud father of three, right? Anyway, survival is on them now. You wanna hit a karaoke?"

###

Extra: Kaze no Nagare

One of the main problems that Dietrich and Kiritsugu had to face while preparing Shirou for the oncoming Holy Grail War was that the Heroes that would be summoned into it would possess true Noble Phantasms. Tools of the kings that supposedly had existed nameless in the treasury of Gilgamesh and then were scattered across the world; now reborn through the legend and mastery of their wielders.

The situation would have been less dire if only the boy could easily get his hands on something comparable to the Phantasms in advance; however, that was not the case. Many Heroic Spirits never truly existed as people but were born out of collective belief and worship, yet many others never wielded the exact objects that were mentioned in their legend as those were added long after their deaths. Other weapons, pieces of armor, and various empowered accessories had long since been destroyed, now living only in memory.

And what remained would probably be almost useless. A prime example was Avalon: in Shirou's body the Ex-rank Phantasm that, according to legend, had made its wielder pretty much invulnerable and immortal, provided regeneration so weak that its only significant strong point was that it healed literally any wounds, letting Dietrich use it as a way to combat Magic Crest rejection.

In short, they were screwed.

Still, one of the major favors that Kiritsugu had bought with giving up his body for research was the access to Clock Tower's catalogues of powerful artefacts created through Magecraft and powerful enough to be a part of some kind of legend. Finding Kaze no Nagare was a product of that search.

Sure, it wasn't something that could simply blow all their troubles away, because it was a mediocre weapon at best, but it was the closest thing to a real Noble Phantasm that a real, breathing human could get their hands on.

The katanas had been crafted during a period of feudal division in Japan, when a thousand local lords vied for power while common people constantly got caught in the crossfire. Safety was something completely absent during that era, and out of that state an idea was born that later found itself personified in Kaze no Nagare.

They were not made to cut down the enemy. They were not made to stave off death or intimidate. Their only purpose was to protect others. The more weapons were in the vicinity, the faster the swords moved.

For more than one hundred years Kaze no Nagare changed hands, its wielders each sacrificing their lives pushing both the limits of the swords and of their own ability to defend their homes, their families, and any others who had nobody else to rely on. Through use and layered enchantments made by powerful practitioners, the katanas became a perfect tool for intercepting attacks made at others and at yourself, yet they gained their own restrictions. To make the speed increase they provided stable, they had to be wielded by someone who at the moment sincerely didn't value their own existence when compared to the service they could do while protecting others.

One of the swordsmen probably ended up a Heroic Spirit with Kaze no Nagare becoming their true Noble Phantasm. Ichiro Takashi famously defended a small town all by himself for three hours from one of the largest bandit bands of his time. When reinforcements finally arrived, the man sighed in relief and crumpled onto the ground, both his arms broken by the swords in multiple places and body oozing blood from multiple wounds. Takashi's family eventually hid the sword, willing the chain of self-sacrifice to stop, to give those who would die to protect others a chance at their own happiness. The blade had by then become a legend in and of itself, its powers those of a well-crafted and used Mystic Code, but its fame and restrictions close to those attributed to Noble Phantasms.

Thankfully, Dietrich's reputation was good enough for him to be able to find the owners of the blade and offer to make sheaths for the blades that would make it impossible for anyone to find them in the future, finally allowing Takashi's family to complete the duty they had taken upon themselves and their offspring so long ago.

Chapter end notes

What you have read is the final chapter before the actual Holy Grail War begins. I had lots of fun with this one even if there wasn't much action or descriptive narration in it, which come the easiest to me.

A couple more words about this story in general for old readers and those just joining in. This is primarily a character exploration story about a somewhat more broken Shirou and his friends trying to get through the events of Fate/Stay Night alive.

I am much more interested in developing characters and relationships between them while keeping things balanced and believable than I am about keeping things as close to the canon plot and system as possible. While I did read the novel two times, the last one was, maybe, six years ago which you will no doubt notice when we get to the War itself (though I'll skim through the novel again to make sure I get the chronology right). Add that to the fact that I will be meshing together everything I'll need from the three routes and bad ends and… I'm sure you get the picture.

So, characters and their motivations start off as canon (except for Shirou, who is screwed up in a more obvious way) but the plot will fly wherever it will. If you spot serious departure from canon for a character without any explanation or prior development, please, mention it in a review. I will read it, get upset, then I will calm down and work to fix things in a few days. This is why authors need feedback.

About the magic mechanics in my story. Let me just say that I am, in general, a killjoy and a complete nut when it comes to rules. I had been a storyteller for years for a World of Darkness tabletop and know how important sticking to the mechanics can be, but there is a 'but' where this story is concerned. Staying within the confines of canon Nasuverse rules is not my focus, having fun and letting characters grow is. Which admittedly requires rules to keep things balanced and making sense.

However, I will not be breaking mechanics and throwing convoluted chains of rationalizations your way unless I need to. As much as I like "From Fake Dreams" by ThirdFang, I would rather keep my story deus-ex-machina-free whenever I can. Which, admittedly, will not be always as the only reason the characters get to a good end in the original novel is because you as a player make all the right choices. I believe they need more than a bit of extra help to believably survive what the War has in store for them.

Anyway, if I break things, I will try to give you an explanation that at least kind of makes sense. A prime example being the Kaze no Nagare section at the end of this Chapter: if Avalon can physically exist and sort of work, if Fragarach is pretty much a Noble Phantasm used by a living, breathing human, then why can't a weapon of this kind work? However, if you see that I am going into la-la mechanics land: if you see True Magic being thrown about by everybody, if you see mobile Bounded Fields or Saber using her A-rank Riding to become a porn star millionaire…

Actually, if you see the final option anywhere in my text, call the doctors, please.

Anyway, if you see stuff that simply doesn't make sense or breaks the rules beyond any realm of possibility, mention it in a review, please. Again, I won't be happy but I probably will do something about it.

Stay shiny and until next time.


	6. First Day, Second Night

Author's intro

First of all, I apologize for taking so long to post another chapter: life happened and not in a good way. I've dealt with most of the stuff, though, and should be able to update more often.

Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! It's much easier to write when you have positive feedback.

I don't own Nasuverse which is a good thing. Had I owned something that awesome, I wouldn't have bothered to do anything ever again.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

 _Thoughts._

 _"_ _Arias and other Mysteries."_

 ** _"_** ** _Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."_**

Let's hop right in.

First day, second night

Illyasviel von Einzbern was happy. One would undoubtedly wonder how a weapon engineered for the War and destined to die even if she won could be happy; how a Magus who had been forced to support the Berserker without the Grail could be happy; how an orphan abandoned by her parents could be happy. The answer was simple. Illya was unstable at the best of times and insane at the worst. And she was aware of it too. A smart girl like her couldn't ignore that her mood swings were beyond normal, and that her general outlook on life was warped. Only the fact that she did realize there was something wrong gave her hope. If Illya was conscious of it, it couldn't be that bad.

And right now she actually had a good reason to be giddy: for the first time in her life she was free. Her servants didn't follow her to the city and there was no one to keep her company except for Berserker, and her silent companion would never disapprove of whatever she did or said, what with his battle-scrambled brains and all.

After taking a look at the sights around Fuyuki, Illya decided to pay her family a visit. It was only polite when going to your sibling's town to greet them before you killed them, after all.

She had few illusions concerning her actual family. Einzberns weren't kind, but then again few Magi were. The fact that both her mother during the previous War and she at present were allowed to roam the streets of Fuyuki more or less freely didn't stem from some notion of generosity or, Root forbid, compassion. No matter how powerful a Magus, members of her family wouldn't last more than five seconds against a Servant. In addition, the church frowned upon 'unreasonable' amounts of outside help for the participants. For example, nobody would allow them to bring a platoon of Dead Apostles for fighting, promising the undead free roam of the city in case the participant won. Even bringing her two personal servants and guards would be pushing it if they ever left the castle to engage her opponents.

Lack of help didn't bother Illya, of course: Berserker was the strongest. Heracles was overpowered beyond anything anyone could have expected, and the girl's only concern was to selfishly prolong the only time she could taste freedom. She knew she wasn't long for this world.

Which was why it was so infuriating to waste precious minutes waiting on the route her brother would follow on his way home. She had been confident Shirou would hurry back home as soon as possible to prepare for the fight, but that turned out to be a miscalculation. Really, what sort of an idiot even went to school when a war was about to start?

Eventually Shirou showed up with the Matou heir, they said goodbye a fair way before reaching Illya's hiding spot, and her brother kept on walking. Feeling butterflies in her stomach for the first time in a very long time, Illya stepped out from behind a trash container and put on what was one of her creepiest smiles. Even the Einzberns tended to remember some urgent engagement when they saw her like this: eyes promising death and suffering, while her expression showed nothing but childishness and happiness.

"You better summon it soon, Onii-san…"

Illya was quite proud of her playful, lilting voice. It added something special to the general feeling of wrongness, she thought.

The boy stopped and tilted his head in thought. To Illya's dismay, he didn't seem particularly unnerved or bothered. Puzzled, if anything.

"Onii-san? Why do you call me 'nii-san'?"

"Hehehe…"

Illya was prepared to skip away, her job done, when Shirou continued:

"Wouldn't I be your otouto, Illya-san?"

"Wha—"

And just like that, the mood was spoiled. She had been rehearsing this scene for months, and that redheaded infuriating prick broke it! Now the girl wanted to break something herself. She had half a mind to call Berserker and end Shirou right then and there. Her brother looked at his watch.

"Anyway, I have an hour or so. Want to grab some ice-cream?"

The look of incredulity on her face must have been extreme because Shirou visibly cringed.

"Right, Einzbern. Frozen mountains and everything… maybe some spiced wine instead? They probably won't want to sell you the stuff but a light illusion… what? Your face looks strange. Are you in pain?"

"Neee… little brother? I think I will be killing you now…"

Shirou arched an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"You are strange, little brother… I don't know why Kiritsugu chose you over me, but you are twisted… I need to end you now…"

The only reason she hadn't asked Berserker to tear the weirdo limb from limb was that she wanted to see fear in those brown-steel eyes. Alas, it was only consternation.

"But it doesn't make sense! If you kill me now, the Grail isn't filled with energy. I don't understand revenge, but wouldn't it be more humiliating to destroy me completely along with my Servant?"

Illy blinked.

"Are you saying that now isn't the best time to kill you because it won't make me as happy as, say, tomorrow? Were you dropped on your head when you were an infant, little brother?"

The boy rubbed his forehead in frustration.

"Why does everyone always ask that? How am I supposed to know? Anyway, how about ice-cream and punch? And you try to kill me later?"

It dawned on Illya then with all the horror her tortured heart could feel. The reason why Kiritsugu didn't come back for her wasn't that he cared more about some adopted kid, it was because he needed to keep said kid out of an asylum. The worst part of it was that Shirou was right; now really was an illogical time to kill him. It was much better to get both the satisfaction and the payoff at one time.

Plus, she kind of wanted to know what Japanese ice-cream tasted like. Illya had read they had some really strange flavors like wasabi. More than a little perturbed, she followed her brother.

###

Five minutes later they were sitting in a quiet little place, snuggly tucked into a corner booth; she had the weird radish ice-cream, and Shirou opted for a vanilla one. Both had mulled wine in front of them. Shirou had expertly nudged a waiter with a short Mana burst right when they were about to be denied alcohol. The girl realized something was off a few seconds after bringing them the drinks, of course, but decided it was better to pretend everything was fine.

Shirou used this chance to take a good long look at his estranged sister. Illya looked like a weirdly dressed twelve-year-old girl from Europe who hadn't been told that Fuyuki's climate didn't call for ridiculous fur hats and outlandish heavy coats. Her skin was pearl-white as was the hair, and her eyes were red. From far away she could have been mistaken for an albino, but up close it was quite clear that the girl was something different: her skin wasn't devoid of all pigmentation, just underexposed to sunlight.

She also seemed uncomfortable for some reason, which made him feel ill at ease in turn. Shouldn't she be more confident if she had been preparing for this battle her whole life? What kind of monsters the rest of the Masters must be to make his sister this nervous. He decided to break the silence.

"So, how do you like Fuyuki's weather?"

"It's fine, I guess."

Illya fidgeted, barely touching her ice-cream. Shirou sighed.

"Look, I'm sure you'll be fine. The Einzberns must have prepared you well. If anything, it's everyone else who should be worried."

He gave her what he believed to be his best reassuring smile.

"What in the name of the Root is wrong with you? Why aren't you scared of me, Shirou? Why do you act all infuriating and friendly-like?"

It was lucky for them that the café was almost empty by that point and all they got was a few annoyed stares from one couple who clearly were in the stage of their date when interruptions postponed what they both wanted. Shirou chuckled and addressed the room at large in a strained voice.

"Sorry, me and my sister… we can be a bit loud at times. Won't happen again, right, Illya?"

The girl nodded, her face red like a tomato, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like 'I'll kill them, kill them all' under her breath.

He said, "Look, I don't get why you are getting angry. It's not like I chose not to have any contact with you."

"But that's just the point! It's your fault that Papa never came back!"

The girl looked to be on the verge of tears or maybe a violent rampage. It was difficult to tell with her because panic always seemed to be accompanied by rage in Illya's case.

"Troublesome… Look, let's just enjoy the ice-cream, okay."

The rest of the evening they ate in silence and this allowed his sister to calm down a bit. Shirou decided it was a good first step.

Oh, he had considered telling Illya everything at once: both the truth about Kiritsugu and his plans to keep her alive beyond the limited half-homunculus lifespan. That had actually been the plan before he decided to share it with the girls. Even Sakura voiced her reservations against dropping all that on the girl he had never seen in his life and had every reason to deceive because of the war. Tohsaka was a bit more vocal and proceeded to chase Shirou around the house with a baseball bat. Her sister found the scene hilarious.

He and Illya parted about an hour after their initial meeting.

###

Meeting Illya made Shirou move his schedule up a day. It was obvious that his elder sister already had a Servant, otherwise she wouldn't be parading around town without guard.

His own peak of power was at two A.M. The Workshop was ready, and all that remained was the ritual itself. Shirou stood next to the Circle in complete darkness, his eyes closed.

" _The one worthy of the Throne."_

His Circuits flared, pulling both at his Od and the Mana he had stored in a crystal Tohsaka had gifted him. The pressure built up somewhere deeper than his very sense of self and then found a release like an arrow being pulled out of an agonizing wound. Liquid force surged through his system, and an Avalon replica appeared, immediately getting fired into the middle of the Circle. The pattern on the floor glowed a dull gold and started to hum quietly.

 _"_ _Embodiment of ideals, protector of the unwilling."_

Another fake struck the diameter of the Circle, intensifying both the light and the sound. It was an ordinary Mystic code from the Clock Tower arsenal that was centuries old.

 _"_ _Selfless ruler, selfish servant."_

Each verse was punctuated by a new blade striking the circle between lines and giving the array its power.

 _"_ _Beside me you will banish the encroaching darkness.  
Beside me you will smother the burning light._

 _With everything to give.  
With nothing to take._

 _I call on you from beyond.  
With two hearts and one ideal._

 _Let us find and fulfill our purpose.  
Become my blade!"_

Shirou was aware of the standard Servant summoning incantation, but the words of the Aria itself didn't matter. It was the Circle on the ground, the Prana, and his intent that did all the work. And the classical Aria just didn't seem right to him.

By the end of the ritual he had burned through the crystal completely, and all his nerves were screaming from Prana overload. The Circle itself was blindingly bright in the darkness, amber and gold fire dancing on the symbols. All the while Avalon shone brighter and brighter, its hum becoming a hypnotic choir. With no small amount of dismay Shirou realized that another song was resonating inside him as the pieces of the actual Noble Phantasm started to respond. Bright spots appeared under his white shirt and he felt vibrations in his chest.

Higher and higher they went: the light, so bright he couldn't see anything anymore; the song, so loud he was sure he would go deaf; the fluttering in his chest, so strong he feared it would soon start to rend his flesh. Just when Shirou was collapsed on his knees from exhaustion, there was an explosion of unbridled power.

It surged from the design on the floor and filled the workshop with an even more brilliant light. And then it rushed back to the center and everything was quiet.

His eyes watery and ears ringing, Shirou looked up. The full moon came out from behind the windows and its calm blue light drifted through the shed's only window. With golden afterimages surrounding her, before him stood a beautiful golden-haired girl clad in full armor: all thick, heavy steel around delicate features and blue cloth.

"I ask you this, are you my Master?"

Her voice was barely a whisper in the ocean of noise that still filled his ears, yet he understood her perfectly. The sound could have been beautiful, but her tone was far too no-nonsense and business-like. The voice of someone who devoted everything to their purpose.

"Yes."

As unconsciousness took him, Shirou said quietly, "The Once and Future King—a girl. Kiritsugu…"

###

Arturia Pendragon wasn't a proper Heroic Spirit. Where they were personifications of human myth, sometimes attached to a former mortal's soul, King Arthur was an actual living legend plucked out of her time to fight for a miracle capable of saving her war-ravaged homeland.

Because of her special status some Holy Grail rules applied to her while others didn't. Her body couldn't go into Spirit form, yet she still required Prana from her Master to function and was subject to the system when it came to the level of her skills and abilities. While the Grail itself handled most of the summoning, extra power poured into it helped the Spirit gain a slight edge. Normally it would be nothing special: a minor trait of the Phantasm being a bit more powerful or perhaps a less-known part of the Hero's legend manifesting in the form of some secondary artefact. Because she wasn't a Heroic Spirit per se, any extra energy used during calling her to the War had no place left to go except into her attributes.

She felt the pull from her place on the hill.

As always, she was forever bleeding, forever dying for her homeland, but then a second sun rose above the horizon beckoning her onward, to her next attempt at fulfilling her duty. What she didn't expect was the light blinding her during the transition, burning into her muscles and veins, fortifying her flesh and trickling into Excalibur. What she didn't expect was Avalon itself singing to her, summoning its master with the power of nine lesser magical blades and the power of one talented young Magus.

With some trepidation, she surrendered to the call.

The boy that summoned her and confirmed his status before fainting from exhaustion was a puzzle. If he had that much ability, then why did he pour it into swords and through them into a circle specifically designed to hold them? Wouldn't using Prana directly make more sense? Then again, she wasn't Caster.

But puzzles could come later, first she needed to wait for her new Master to regain consciousness.

###

"So you are a woman."

"Yes."

Shirou didn't know whether the reason for Saber's brevity had to do with her not being one to waste words or with her currently going through anything and everything he had pre-cooked at alarming speeds. Tohsaka had told him Heroic Spirits didn't need food but could eat when they wanted. Saber must have been a real glutton in her time.

The more important fact was that it was apparently cemented by fate he was doomed to be surrounded by powerful, difficult women and the more he lived, the more of them he would have in his life. At least Saber didn't seem like she would punch him at the slightest provocation which he was extremely thankful for. Still, better confirm.

"Excuse me, but I have to check. Are you prone to sudden bursts of violence?"

Her eyebrow twitched. "No."

"Do you have any sort of curses demanding you have regular sex with men?"

She grimaced. "No."

"Do you have a sense of humor?"

"No," she deadpanned.

They stared at each other for a few seconds.

"Was that a joke?" he asked.

"Master, I have to ask you to refrain from frivolous comments," she said. "You seem to be a competent Magus, but distractions have proved to be the undoing of better warriors in the past. We must stay focused."

Shirou decided to let the matter of finding more about Saber drop for now. She didn't seem big on sharing anything beyond her mission, and he could sympathize. Still, he couldn't help but feel that Kiritsugu had omitted purely for fun that King Arthur was actually a cute if somewhat rigid girl.

He said, "For now we should focus on outside parties seeking to warp this War for their own benefit."

Saber tilted her head. "Surely, destroying the other Masters will take priority."

"There are two major powers in this city seeking to use the upcoming battle for their own gain. One of them is the current Overseer, Kotomine Kirei. He is a sick, twisted man who thrives on messing with people's heads and pushing them into morally impossible situations. I am sure he will try and force us to choose between saving innocents and surviving some sort of fight. He has to be put down."

Saber nodded.

"The second one is more predictable but may become an even bigger long-term problem," Shirou continued. "Matou Zouken is an ancient egoistical Magus who has kept himself alive for centuries through unknown but undeniably corrupted Mysteries. We have been able to examine some of his work, and it appears that the man has managed to make his familiars into containers for his soul. Other Masters have an interest in disposing of him, but the trick would be to do it permanently."

"I don't see how a self-obsessed Magus concerns our mission."

Root, it was like talking to himself only even more gruff and business-like.

"That self-obsessed Magus has prepared a second Lesser Grail. I'm sure you can see how that can be a problem."

Now that got her attention.

"If the Heroic Spirits are split…"

"Honestly, nobody knows what exactly would happen. This particular kind of cheating has never been tried before and this is saying something, considering the fact that everybody seems to want to game the system whenever they can." He grinned darkly. "The main question is what would happen if one of the Lesser Grails were killed. Would the energy go into the other Grail as it would with a Heroic Spirit? Would it dissipate? Would it go into the Greater Grail itself screwing up the whole process and making the wish-fulfillment impossible? There is no way to know without trying and I'm not willing to risk it. We need to reduce the number of unknown variables."

Saber nodded in contemplation and Shirou was happy to see she could see sense.

"Good. Now tell me about your abilities."

###

Tohsaka would laugh if the situation hadn't been so screwed up.

The Holy Grail War had long since evolved from being a way to fulfill man's wishes into something completely different. One of the very clear signs of how warped the system had become was the fact that it still recognized her right to become a Master even if her only wish was to dispose of the Grail itself, save her sister, and keep them all alive throughout the process. How the hell that qualified as a legitimate wish, she had no idea. It was quite possible that the Grail simply felt the potential for destruction that trying to fulfill her selfish desire would bring. After all, chaos and destruction was what it apparently existed for.

Her reason for chuckling dryly was the man she had summoned as a Servant. Shirou's own array had given her some ideas, and she emptied her father's heart-shaped gem into the ritual. Tohsaka judged that a power-up for her Servant would be more useful than lugging around an overpowered Mana-battery, which she very likely wouldn't be able to use strategically. Shirou himself had added a couple minor blade-based Mystic Codes Dietrich had given them as additional power sources and combined with her own exceptional set of Circuits this amounted to an insane amount of Prana—something she hoped to counteract the lack of proper Catalyst with.

Both Sakura and Shirou helped her double-check the entire thing including the most appropriate time, and the ritual went without a hitch. In a blinding flash of light, a man appeared in front of her, long red cloak billowing, black vest hugging is unashamedly muscular frame, short silver hair rebelling against gravity and eyes the colour of steel peering into hers. He looked vaguely familiar and it took her a whole of two seconds to place that face and body.

"No," she said.

"I must ask you, are you my—"

"No-no-no! Just shut up!"

"Master—"

"I SAID SHUT UP! How is this even possible? There aren't supposed to be any Heroes in the modern age! And you are from the future! What the bloody fuck did you do, Shirou?! ARGH! As if beating sense into one of you wasn't bad enough, but two?"

The summoned man lost all of his cocky air in the span of five seconds.

"Tohsaka… You aren't supposed to…"

"I'm not supposed to?! You aren't supposed to be a Heroic Spirit! You aren't supposed to pretend I don't know what you look like! You aren't supposed to look as if all your plans have just gone up in the air! Because there aren't supposed to be any plans in the first place!" She facepalmed. "You will tell me how the hell this happened. If I think even for a second you are lying or withholding information, Root help me, I will use a Command Seal to ensure your honesty. Are we clear?"

"…Perfectly, Master."

###

Despite being convinced that the whole situation was a fuck-up, Archer was quite happy they had this conversation as it kept him from making some very dumb mistakes. This reality's Shirou was definitely not him. It was apparent that the Grail had pulled him from far across the parallel planes. It aligned with the theory he himself had developed with Tohsaka during their time at the Clock Tower. They had hypothesized that both the Throne and the Counter Force actually transcended the bounds of a single realm and none of the Heroic Spirits were simply human ideas given form. They all had existed somewhere at one point or another in time and space.

Which was another very strange thing about this summoning: he didn't know how but Tohsaka had somehow managed to pump so much Mana into the ritual that his memory was much less clouded than it should have been. Normally he had trouble remembering. The Counter Force didn't give a damn about its employees' personalities or mental health, and when you got called upon by the Spirit of Humanity you got little else beyond your combat skills and useful experiences. The only reason he was cognizant during those summonings was that, sadly, quite a large part of his original life was related to combat. And when he was done, the new violent experiences added to hundreds of others. In his library of stories his own past was just a tiny shelf in a corner, and the rest was filled with blood, pain, and futile attempts to break the cycle by reliving the Grail War again and again.

So it was quite natural that when he normally got summoned into said War, he could barely remember his own human life. Dead father, foolish dream, precious people, self-sacrifice, alienating friends, more self-sacrifice, ultimate self-sacrifice—that was pretty much it. He barely even remembered the people and the fights until he saw them, for Root's sake! Only one face always stood out in the memories: a man with black disheveled hair crying as he pulled a badly burned boy out of the fire.

But this time everything was different. For some reason, he clearly remembered most of his original life, complete with faces, places, and most dates. And his Reality Marble was filled to the brim with every tiny bladed piece of junk he ever saw and made, as opposed to only the more prominent weapons.

Overall, it was strange but not as strange as the picture of Shirou that Tohsaka had painted for him.

"So wait, the cretin actually restrains himself before dashing in the way of bodily harm?" he asked. "What happened?"

"A lot, actually. Look, I don't have the time for this right now... My Shirou… he isn't right in the head."

Archer snorted.

"No, I mean, really not right. Not right on the level of 'I do not understand why society doesn't implement a gene registry for optimal breeding' bad. On the level of 'my purpose is to find my purpose and no, circular logic doesn't bother me' bad. On the level of 'I cut my finger, I have a paper due tomorrow, I will stick a freaking healing sword into my hip to heal that cut as I don't need to get up for the next few hours' bad. And yes, all of those are actual examples."

"Oh."

"Yes. 'Oh.' Apparently, Kiritsugu noticed it first, but it was me, Sakura, and Dietrich who have picking up slack for years now."

"Dietrich?"

"What, you don't remember your adoptive father now, Archer? How hard did you hit your ass on that sofa and why is your brain located there?"

Somehow, whenever Archer got summoned into the War he thrashed some kind of furniture or other with his backside. It was a universal constant. Like gravity.

He said, "Now who is assuming they know everything? I've never had an adoptive father; it was just me and Fuji-nee." It was strange how easily his memories came, even a bit unsettling. But it also helped him get his priorities right. Especially while he was ahead of Tohsaka by the smallest margin in their verbal jab contest. "Well, it looks like I don't have any real goal here but it's still better than the alternative…"

"Which is?"

He decided to be blunt. "The Counter Force."

Tohsaka went white but thankfully stayed silent.

"Yeah. If your Shirou ever wants to make a deal with Gaia, Alaya or anything ending in something that sounds like 'ya', you can do him a favor and just kill him instead. Nobody wants to end up doing my job, trust me. Anyway, what's the plan? Since I remember pretty much everything, I might be able to help you all survive this shitstorm."

"Zouken and Kotomine, obviously."

 _Oh, she thinks herself so clever._

"What about Gilgamesh?"

If color drained out of Tohsaka's face after his revelation that he was a glorified antibody in the planet's system, then now she was the color of bleached bone.

"HE IS STILL ALIVE?!"

"Ah, now there is the Tohsaka I loved," he said.

"Wait, what? No, no, no, we are not going there. I will not have romantic advances from the spirit of my lover who came back from a parallel future. It is so insane my brain starts to melt just from contemplating the possibility of contemplating the possibility. So just no."

It was his turn to gape like an idiot.

"So, Gilgamesh. King of Heroes? Archer, are you with me?"

"Yes."

"Why are you staring? Get yourself together, this changes everything."

And indeed it did.

###

Shirou had been worried that when he would finally meet Kotomine Kirei he simply wouldn't be able to see the cruelty and insanity that others accused the man of. After all, a lot of his own elegant, efficient solutions to personal and societal problems were often met with incredulity, if not revulsion. He still didn't get why developing an artificial religion that promoted productivity and peaceful coexistence and providing UN subsidies to parents who raised their children in it wasn't viable. Sure, it would cause some amount of outrage, but wouldn't it be worth it to stop the never ending bloodbath in the Middle East in ten or twenty years? Surely the citizens of poor countries would take the opportunity to have more money in exchange for some of their antiquated superstitions, and the construct, made up of appropriate values, would serve the role of support and justification they seemed to so desperately need.

When he proposed such a course during one of their modern history lessons was the only time he actually got yelled at by a teacher. Apparently, she was Christian and didn't appreciate his utilitarian approach at all. Sometimes he simply didn't get people, so far that he would probably have been called a sociopath had he not been a Magus first and foremost.

But Kotomine turned to be another breed entirely.

"…so you see, you can take refuge at the Church and simply wait until the War is over but there have already been several dozen murders during past week alone. Are you really one to stand back and watch people die, Emiya-san?"

During the entire speech about being able to prevent murders Kotomine had a kind of serene smile that only people who had no care in the world had. That or pathological liars and psychopaths.

Shirou said, "I didn't say I wanted to forfeit."

"Emiya-san? But you said you didn't have a particular wish?"

"This battle will validate my existence."

The last phrase was delivered in an even emotionless voice. Hey, if it worked for that one character in that one anime, why wouldn't it work for him? He looked expectantly at Kirei, checking whether the man would suddenly befriend him or attempt to convince him that life was more than fighting and bloodshed.

"Emiya-san, even if you don't want to forfeit, may I suggest resting here at the church for a while? You appear to be mentally unstable after the summoning ritual."

 _Huh. Apparently it works only if the crazy one is the one to say it._

"No, thank you."

With that he left the priest behind along with his meticulously manufactured expressions. If Shirou hadn't been broken himself, he probably wouldn't have noticed, but to him the way the Overseer of the Holy Grail War carried himself was completely transparent. The man had a purpose and it wasn't good.

There were three kinds of people: those who didn't need a purpose, those who lacked it, and those who had it. The first group encompassed most of the world's population. Even Tohsaka with her bull-headed determination would probably choose to live a full life of a Magus instead of dying immediately upon reaching the Root. It took him years but finally Shirou understood: most people were governed by instincts and emotions, not by rational pursuit of something that made them whole. They didn't require it because they were complete from the start, only needing some direction in their lives to be happy.

Shirou himself was like a log adrift at sea. Things like hunger or sleep-deprivation bothered him on a barely mechanical level and subtler needs common for others eluded him completely. Social acceptance, power over people, knowledge… Well, maybe knowledge mattered a bit. Still, his life was dominated by the desire to find something to truly apply himself to without reservation. The duty that his father had left him with served as reasonable stand-in for that ultimate wish, but no more than that.

It was clear to him that Kotomine Kirei had found his overriding purpose in life: the man was far too focused, far too calm. He didn't seem happy, greedy, afraid, or bored. That kind of serenity implied either some sort of spiritual enlightenment or singular path and iron discipline. And if his father was to be believed, Kotomine had adopted 'testing of men' as his nature. The irony wasn't lost on Shirou as that was the primary role of Lucifer according to the very Church the priest was a member of.

They were walking a street, he in his school clothes and Saber in her… formalwear. He didn't buy her explanation of there being something wrong with the ritual as the reason for her inability to go intangible. It simply didn't fit anything he had learned about the Holy Grail War: Servants were Spirits, intangibility was their default state, and it was Mana that granted them physical form. If he didn't know better, he'd think he had summoned a human instead of a magical being born in the Throne of Heroes and brought into existence through the Mystery that was the Greater Holy Grail.

And it really screwed his plans up too: he had been planning to rely on his Servant being able to turn invisible and undetectable. Now a lot of contingencies needed to be redone.

"Shirou. Someone's coming."

They were in the middle of a dark road in an area that had been hit by gas leaks some days prior. He really didn't think those were real gas leaks, though: that was the most often used excuse of the Association when cleaning up after sloppy Magi.

He sensed someone approach from behind.

"Haven't I been a good girl, brother? I have waited like you asked. Now it's your turn to be a good boy and die."

###

Everybody thinks they are special, and yet none of them really are. This was a truth that Zouken Matou came to realize far too late. Back when he had been a bona fide Russian Magus bearing the family name of Makiri, he had been just like everybody else: thinking he was destined for great things and that the universe somehow owed him because of his talent for Magecraft and many accomplishments in the field of Familiar-related Mysteries.

It took him a while but Zouken was finally able to grasp the reason why people couldn't simply accept they were very much like the insects he had grown so accustomed to: they thought suffering had meaning. It was normal for a person to regard all the happiness and everything good in their lives as simply 'good luck', yet they would think that because their piece-of-shit family had abused them or something inane like that they deserved to be treated differently. Turned cripple because of a mugging gone wrong? Now I get to lecture you for hours on personal safety. Had my parents die in front of me? Now I get to blabber all day about turning the world into a better place. Got raped that one time in high-school by a bunch of doped-up delinquents? Well, walk on eggshells around me for the rest of my natural life!

It sickened him. Weakness asking for pity in the name of fairness. Meaningless, stupid ideals born of a society interested only in the survival of the species, not personal accomplishment or giving one's life some sort of value.

Zouken Matou believed in sacrifice; he believed in paying the price that was asked and letting others try to thwart his plans as they pleased. They would die, of course, but they had the freedom to make that choice. It wasn't like he had changed his very essence, filled the city with his Familiars, and developed a reincarnation ritual to purchase a winery and die in peace. He had worked hard to get where he was and he sure as hell wasn't going to waste it.

So where had he gone wrong?

"You have miscalculated, Grandfather."

Again he tried to send the order to stop her heart to the worm winding around it, and again nothing happened. Again he tried to flee his petrified body, and again the purple-haired witch simply grinned at him. Those unnatural, slitted eyes. Who would have thought his timid granddaughter could summon the Gorgon and gain complete control over her this soon.

When Sakura had suggested a team-up with Tohsaka, he thought it was a splendid idea. Indeed, joining forces with her sister only to betray her later all for the affections of a teenage boy—how devious! And how easy to control.

So he didn't object when Rin came to their house to strategize. Everything was going according to plan and that was why he hesitated when he opened the door to the room where the girls were and met purple, slitted, inhuman eyes.

In his long life he had never seen such hatred.

"Scum."

The voice dripped venom and its owner—normally emotionless Rider—was seething. It took him a moment to recompose himself and send the impulse to incapacitate his granddaughter, even as he felt his limbs turning to stone.

"Stop. Or your Master dies."

He was rather pleased with how in control he sounded. At least right up to the point when something whistled past Sakura and his connection with the Familiar inside her broke. That made him pause and ultimately sealed his fate. There was more whistling as a red shadow pirouetted around him too fast for human eyes to follow.

And when his soul tried to leave his body he found he had no connection to his Familiars, even the ones in the cellar of his own Workshop.

The shadow stopped in its movement and turned into a tall tan man with short white hair. Some might have been puzzled to guess at his identity but Zouken had seen far too many others start as children, grow up, age, and die. It wasn't difficult for him to guess that it was Emiya Shirou who had stopped the Mystery.

"How?" he asked.

"Oh? I am not about to reveal the trick to you, old worm. You might just wriggle out of it. So puzzle it out in hell."

Sakura—the frightened little girl he had picked up from Tokiomi Tohsaka—was now walking toward him with a pen knife in hand. She stopped in front of him.

His granddaughter wasn't the tallest of women, but age and overuse of Mysteries had bent him and she towered over him. While most of his brain was grasping for an escape, he registered just how uncomfortable Sakura's expression made him: it wasn't her normal polite mask, neither it was the doll-like façade she adapted during her training sessions. Manic glee was shining in her eyes.

"Hello, Grandfather."

She smiled the sweetest smile, the same one she gave Shinji while she was cradling his paralyzed body in her arms.

Tohsaka said, "Sakura, let's just get this over with and go."

"No, no, no!" She sounded hysterical for a moment. "I need this, sister."

Her voice changed back into a calm, promising whisper. Meduza stood right next to her Master, carefully maintaining eye contact with Zouken. By now he was mostly helpless, and the Other Shirou kept counteracting his attempts to contact his Familiars with some kind of projectiles.

"You defiled me, Grandfather. You took a little girl who wanted nothing more than to be with her family and you raped her until she became what you could consider your heritage. Oh yes, I know how the worms are technically what you really are. What was the point of attaining immortality if all you ended up being able to preserve was… this."

And then she plunged the knife into his left eyeball to the hilt. Suddenly, most of his childhood memories became lost to him.

"But you made a mistake, grandfather. You let me befriend my sister and Shirou, you let me have friends. And we? We have figured it out." Her manic grin grew wider. "You still need a body to function; your soul cannot simply perform the Mysteries by itself; you use the rudimentary Circuits in the worms, don't you? And what you do to keep yourself alive… you are a parasite. An exceptional parasite, but that still leaves you vulnerable. You need a host, and while it is alive you can't leave while most of your body is stone, and half your brain is mush."

She stepped back, leaving the blade sticking out of the only part of his skull that wasn't petrified.

"Rin!"

"Yes?"

He couldn't see them: his good eye was a pebble. The sounds began fading too.

Sakura said, "Have Archer make sure there is the barest amount of him alive. Me and Rider have hunting to do."

The last coherent thought his brain could produce was, _Idiot girls. Sooner or later I will die. You will miss a worm somewhere and the instincts I've build into them will take over. They will feed, they will multiply and then… I will come back._

The last thing he could perceive was Archer's voice.

"Did you know there are Mystic Codes specifically designed for torture? To keep nearly dead on the brink for months? All I need to do is show them to the kid and by the time you expire, old man, there will be nowhere to run. Sweet dreams, worm. May you never find peace."

###

It was not a good day to be Emiya Shirou. Few days were, actually, but this one was quickly turning out to be one of the worst ones of his life.

Absolute cacophony of sounds permeated the air as Saber did her best to hold her ground against the behemoth's attack.

 ** _"_** ** _#$ %!"_**

Berserker roared and swung both of his monstrous blades down missing Saber by mere inches. She nicked it in the right shoulder before ground exploded, and the shockwave threw her back ten feet.

"What's wrong, brother?" asked Illya. "Didn't Kiritsugu teach you any of his tricks?"

"Not really. He was more of 'what to avoid' kind of teacher. Admittedly, Berserker was on the list: apparently the previous one could turn anything he touched into his Noble Phantasm weapon."

He was stalling, and they both knew it. The only reason Hercules wasn't attacking him right now was probably because Ilya felt perfectly confident. To be honest, he couldn't fault her: this kind of Berserker was way beyond what he had allowed for when preparing for the War.

He sighed. There was only one way out. Shirou spread his hands and turned them palms up, as if in prayer. Illya watched him with curiosity.

" _I am the blade of my sword._ "

" _Kaze no Nagare_."

Space flexed and distorted as Kaze no Nagare was pulled out from his Reality Marble. Like with Avalon, the Tracing of his favorite weapon looked somewhat different from other swords he had at his disposal. Less like construction and more like teleportation.

A familiar sense of calm purpose settled over him as he took a hold of his blades. The desire to defend. That was the limitation of the swords: they couldn't be used for direct attack. Still, he didn't see any other way he could get away without straight up killing his sister.

The boy's eyes settled on Saber.

"You will get out of this alive. This I swear."

Arturia looked like he had confessed to being Morgan le Fay in disguise.

"Enough! Berserker, finish them."

 ** _"_** ** _#$# (%$ !"_**

Just as the giant leapt in to the fray again, Saber already moving to intercept him, Shirou was finishing his incantation.

" _Steel, my destiny. Fire, my fate._ "

The Servants clashed again, Saber, for all her monstrous strength, got knocked back several yards.

" _Rain of healing!_ "

Illya actually paused at his declaration and laughed.

"What, you are going to kill me with cuddles?"

All his Circuits flared to life and each of them produced a blade. Of the twenty-seven knifes only one looked like it was a proper weapon; the other twenty-six were akin to something a child pretending to be a blacksmith would make. Crude, ugly, brittle.

And all of them smelled strongly of Mana and were flying toward her sister.

Berserker moved, getting another minor wound from Saber in the process, and positioned himself between the two Masters. Blades impacted his skin and projections shattered, leaving no mark. But Shirou was already moving and shouting.

"Saber, take the right!"

More blades appeared as he weaved in the general direction of the enemy. Admittedly, his aim was shit when he was moving almost faster than the knives themselves, but it didn't matter. His only purpose was to keep Berserker in place.

Each Traced weapon made Kaze no Nagare accelerate him even further; at those speeds his biggest concern was running straight into a blade as his reactions weren't used to a battle between Servants.

And then there was also the constraint the katanas imposed: right now he was trying to make his sister retreat to keep Saber safe. It was the only thing that made him able to use the Phantasm at all.

"Gut her."

Which was why he was caught completely flat-footed when Ilya ordered her Servant to disregard her safety and move against Arturia. The knight herself was moving way too fast and operating on the assumption that Berserker would be standing his ground. Saber was moments away from being cut in two.

He completely disregarded the silver half-translucent shield-like construct covering Illya against his knives. It was irrelevant.

Instead he summoned more blades, poured more into his Reinforcement and, finally, called upon his Magic Crest. Burning pain flared down his left arm and between his shoulder blades, and red started encroaching on his vision. This too was irrelevant.

What was relevant was the fact he was able to move faster than Saber for just a fraction of a second. Enough to push her out of the way.

Time stopped. Berserker froze and he would have liked to think that the giant was confused by the male human that had somehow appeared in front of him.

Kaze no Nagare shattered in his arms as did all the blades that had still been flying through the air. One had found its way past Ilya's protective lattice and cut her cheek. The girl absent-mindedly reached for the wound while continuing to stare at her brother. At her dear nearly departed brother who was now lying on the ground clutching a huge gash in his side. Blood and what looked like intestine pushed past his weak fingers.

"Shirou, get a hold of yourself!" Saber had seemingly forgotten the battle. In her defense, everybody else seemed to have forgotten it too.

Ilya's fingers came back from her face clean. There was no blood.

"Why? How?"

She didn't exactly regain her faculties but at least seemed to be capable of semi-coherent speech. Struggling to breathe, Shirou exhaled.

"Healing blades. Rain of healing."

"Why."

"Overloads the nerves. Can't kill."

It had been a decent plan, but he had underestimated his sister's determination.

He said, "Look, kill me or don't. Saber."

Without a word, Arturia picked up her Master and started walking toward Shirou's house, leaving a trail of blood. After a few steps Shirou managed to summon the one decent knife among the many he had sent flying at Illya minutes before and stabbed himself.

She said, "Berserker, we are going home before I put something sharp in my brain to escape the madness. But next time we meet…"

She then discovered that her brother's head was lolling from side to side like a ragdoll's. He had lost consciousness.

"Tsk… Boring. Let's see if we can find something to entertain us with, Berserker."

###

It had been a good night, Tohsaka figured as she and Sakura headed toward Shirou's house. They had managed to neutralize Zouken which was no small feat even considering the element of surprise and the fact that the old Magus had apparently never gone up against a Servant.

Still, with the most immediate threat taken care of and her sister's safety somewhat assured, they could now proceed to subverting and wiping out the opposition. Rin still had her doubts, but tonight had shown her just what several Masters could accomplish when they worked together. Tohsaka estimated they needed to knock out two Servants to be able to completely dominate the field of battle, and then nothing would prevent them from finally taking care of the Grail. Unless the Burial Agency, Magicians, or Dead Apostle Ancestors got involved. Which was why speed was crucial, and there was no room for foolishness.

They were going to rest at Shirou's place for a few hours and then go to school because it was unlikely they would get attacked there during the day, sleep some more (her reputation would certainly take a hit for dozing off in class) and then perform their blitzkrieg the next night.

When she noticed the small puddle of blood at the front gate, her thoughts froze. It took the two sisters ten seconds to follow the trail to Emiya's workshop, but those seconds were the longest, most excruciating of her life. And they only stretched on after she finally got inside.

Shirou was lying on his back, a huge gash in his side. The lonely lightbulb in the shed made his skin look unnaturally pale and cast deep shadows around his eyes. The only indication that the boy was still alive was the barely visible rising of his chest and blood slowly pulsing out of the wound and onto the floor, soaking what little remained of his shirt. Nearby a prim blond tiny thing of a woman sat Japanese-style with a focused expression.

"Tohsaka Rin and Matou Sakura, I presume. I am Saber."

Tohsaka was about to explode when the blond added, "He will be fine. His recovery speed is astonishing, really."

Sakura said, "Recovery speed… Saber-senpai, he was worse?"

It would be troubling how quickly her sister could change gears from obviously sadistic and domineering to timid and unsure. Would be, had her not-really-boyfriend been okay and not doing his best to leave a body-sized bloody imprint on the floor.

"The blade cut through all the muscle and skin and nicked the organs. He would be dead without Avalon inside him."

Sakura gasped, and Tohsaka walked toward Shirou on uncooperative legs. He looked so vulnerable, and yet there was something peaceful about his expression despite all the pain. She had half a mind to scream at him. She might have very well done that had he been in a better condition and not had a potentially murderous legendary figure at his side.

She asked, "Does anyone know anything that can heal him?"

Sakura said, "You mentioned something about healing with gems…"

"The stone was spent on the summoning, Sakura. With what I have on me I would be able to seal maybe two more centimeters."

Saber said, "I understand your distress, but Shirou will recover in a few more hours if he keeps going like this. There is no cause for alarm."

Tohsaka simply glared at Saber and reached to Archer with her mind.

"For the record, Master, I completely agree with Saber. Let the boy learn."

Even after establishing that their world was quite different from his own past, it was still clear that Archer harbored quite a bit of resentment toward her friend. Tohsaka didn't give a fuck.

"I don't need your opinion. Just help him."

Archer sighed and materialized. Shirou opened his eyes and started screaming.

Chapter end notes

And we're off! The Holy Grail War has started, and this means that we are finally moving past setup and getting to the meat of the story. Let me know what you think of it in the reviews! I really appreciate the feedback and barring some stuff fundamental to the plot am not above tweaking things so that readers can enjoy the story more.

You might have noticed by now that, although I like writing from different characters' perspectives, they are all protagonists. Zouken appears to be an exception but he really isn't: it's just that Sakura's plotline looked better from his viewpoint. As much as I would like to write a chapter about Gilgamesh going to Monaco and living the good life for a couple years between the Wars, I can't. That secret will stay between me and him.

Anyway, I am firmly back at home now and nobody in my immediate vicinity needs my help with something major, so I should be able to post more regularly. Ideally, once every two weeks, pessimistically, once a month.

Stay shiny and see you next time.


	7. Duality Squared

Author's Intro

So, yeah, publishing the chapters ahead of schedule isn't working out so well but at least I manage to finish them on time. This one is especially important for me as the twist introduced in it is something that was born before most of the plot. This idea is my attempt at giving Shirou a reasonable chance against Berserker and Gilgamesh without turning him into some sort of god. I hope you like it.

I continue to be amazed at the level of support this fic is getting: I mean, it's not like Fate/Stay Night if the largest fandom out there, but there is a bunch of people who like and review. Thank you, everyone, you are awesome and make writing a lot more rewarding.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

 _Thoughts._

 _"_ _Arias and other Mysteries."_

 ** _"_** ** _Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."_**

Enjoy, full notes at the end of the chapter.

Duality Squared

"Huh, I'm pretty sure that's not normal."

Nobody could hear him, but it still bore mentioning that the sky wasn't, in fact, supposed to be the color of lava with an occasional packet of heavy storm clouds added for the sake of variety. The land was bathed in red, and thunder rolled above without a stop, making Shirou's headache even worse. Like a beautiful piano concerto; only his nerves played the part of keys, and somebody used a multitude of sledgehammers instead of fingers.

It took him a few moments to wade through the sludge of his recent memories: evening, Saber, Kotomine, Ilya, Berserker… Ah, yes, Berserker. The unstoppable monster who decided both Shirou and his Servant could do much better with their spines cut in half. There were many accomplished disabled people in the world, after all.

It was probably the blood loss, he mused, that gave his sense of humor the same tinge that the sky from hell had. Was he dead? If yes, then it was a very boring kind of afterlife: a warped wasteland under a perpetual storm. Not exactly the nightmare you'd expect from hell and definitely not heaven.

It was then that Shirou spotted the familiar hill in the distance and the fact that what he had assumed to be lightning bolts were actually blades hurtling from above at supersonic speeds, booming above and embedding themselves deep into the ground.

One landed within a hundred feet from him with a crash that shook the earth. It was a beautiful long sword, masterfully crafted.

 _"_ _Caladbolg."_

The name drilled itself into the boy's mind along with the history of the legendary weapon that never missed it target. As the pain threatened to overtake him, Shirou noticed something else: the air around the blade shifted and sizzled as if being burned away by it. In its place white amorphous fog started to seep through rolling off in slow majestic billows; it drifted down but instead of spreading like any well-behaved fog should do it consumed the earth instead. The blade hovered in the air now, and behind the spilling fog the same deep red that permeated the sky started to pulse.

###

Serving the Counterforce meant that Archer was very rarely unpleasantly surprised. He had the experience of a dozen lifetimes behind him, none of them particularly pleasant. You could pick pretty much any way to die and find that Archer had already done it multiple times. And there were few things worse than death.

Unfortunately, what he was now experiencing could easily qualify.

"Archer! Get ahold of yourself, you overgrown lumbering idiot!"

He idly mused that he had rarely seen Tohsaka this scared in her life. What was she afraid of? He had been dead for a long time, not like this would change that… Ah, right. He still needed to make sure as many people as possible made it through the War.

Archer was on his knees in the tiny shed, looking at his disintegrating hands. Flakes of flesh gently floated off them and turned into little beautiful fireworks of Prana. He couldn't appreciate it much, seeing as it felt like every flake was slowly being peeled off him by a cheese grater.

"ARRRRGH!"

The scream made him feel better. Falling onto the floor next to the convulsing Shirou and gathering himself into a fetal position also helped a bit.

"You! Sakura, right? Help me force a spoon between his teeth!"

Saber, always so prim and proper, was in a proper panic trying to keep his convulsing younger doppelganger from hurting himself.

"Go into Spirit Form, you idiot!"

How appropriate that Tohsaka would take care of him as he was dying from some unknown mystical effect. None of those had killed him in his own lifetime, of course, but he had to admit this one might do the job. His arms and legs were now each missing a half.

 _"_ _By the power of a Command Spell! Stabilize!"_

###

Archer found himself in a strange place. It was like his Reality Marble only it clearly wasn't. The weather was a lot nicer, for one (even if it was a bit stormy at the moment). There was actual green grass, the air smelled only a little of soot, and the giant forge in the sky didn't look at all like his gears. Wait, a forge?

He suddenly had a horrible premonition of where he had ended up.

"I don't know how you got inside, but get yourself over here, or we are both dead!"

His younger self was at the foot of the hill. The boy looked like crap. Sweat had soaked his t-shirt and the wound he had sustained had partially reopened despite the fact that Shirou was holding Avalon in his left hand. The slowly healing burns that covered the arms didn't improve his appearance either. Archer could practically feel Prana scream each time the boy summoned another generic sword and fired it into the sky at mind numbing speeds. A Mystic Crest burned on his back bright enough to be seen through the clothes, and Shirou grimaced every time it pulsed with light.

It was an impressive display, far exceeding what he had been capable of at the start of his War. It wasn't difficult for Archer to see what the boy was doing even if 'why' was another question altogether: swords were falling from the sky and Shirou was knocking them off-course. Or attempting to as nearly half of his shots went clear of their targets.

"If you can, knock them into the quarter filled with fog!"

Saving Shirou's life really wasn't his problem; the puzzle of how he ended up within the young Magus' Reality Marble was much more interesting. He zeroed in on one of the blades in the sky while Reinforcing his eyes. A tiny black speck against the red most people would barely pay any notice to.

It was Rule-breaker.

The Counter Guardian blanched. Without saying a word, Archer Traced his bow and started to bathe the sky with arrows, knocking everything falling from the sky into the unformed part of the Marble where the distortion they created wouldn't do any damage. Strangely, when blades landed in that amorphous part of the world they didn't tear reality asunder; bits and pieces of ground covered in red grass started to emerge instead.

"Thanks,» said Shirou «I'll go and pick up the two dozen swords that have already fallen!"

After what felt like two hours of fighting the endless barrage of blades, the two of them ended up lying on their backs in the quarter of Shirou's mindscape that had formerly been filled with milky white. Now it had red grass, red sky, gears floating in it and several tons of bladed weaponry stuck in the ground all over the place. Outside it a hundred small rifts remained, bleeding wisps of grey smoke that made the whole Marble shimmer slightly, as if it couldn't decide whether it was real or a mirage.

Archer said, "So, that happened."

"Yeah."

"Think you can get a TV in here?"

"Not unless it's a Combat TV of Doom. You know how it works."

"Rin is going to be pissed."

The younger Shirou sighed. "That's an understatement. She is more mellow than you remember, so we can hope—"

"You don't really mean that. That's Rin Tohsaka we are talking about."

A minute passed in silence.

Shirou said, "Talking to myself, even older and wiser, isn't constructive. Thank you for the help. I'll wake up now and try to get you out."

"Now that sounds like something I might have thought of at your age. It will probably blow your whole system with Mana Overload."

"The Grail might provide some of the power need to Project you."

"And when could we count on anything good coming from the Grail?"

"Point."

They stayed silent for a while longer.

"Okay, I'm going. Tohsaka might come up with something."

###

"Sakura, Saber, he is awake!"

Sakura, who had been sitting in a chair by his side, launched herself at him, glomping the other side of his aching torso. Saber stood up from where she had been resting against a wall.

"For the love of… it hurts. Saber, get them off."

Saber started to slowly walk up to the bed with some feeling that was hard to define in her eyes.

"You can't be serious. If you jump on top, I really might die."

Thankfully, Saber only squeezed his hand (that somehow didn't become trapped in the human ball) and effortlessly pulled his lovers off him.

A minute later she brought another two chairs to the room, and the girls sat by the bed and demanded explanations. Tohsaka was especially insistent, probably trying to distract everyone from the blush brought on by her moment of weakness.

"What in the name of the Root has just happened? You were unconscious for hours; it's morning already!"

"Tohsaka, could you stop screaming? My head hurts."

"Senpai, you were thrashing for the first two hours or so. Saber held you down to keep you safe. Please explain."

Shirou sighed and steeled himself for a long conversation he would have rather avoided if he could. "Has Tohsaka told you that she summoned an elder version of me from an alternative dimension?"

"I only texted you, Shirou. I didn't want to distract Sakura—"

"An older you, Senpai?"

"I'm surprised it didn't cause reality to collapse because of paradox. I've told you before I can instantly analyze and reproduce any sword I see. And I have the Origin and Element of 'Sword'."

They looked at him with dumbfounded looks. Surprisingly, it was Saber who paled first.

"No… That's impossible."

"Apparently, Archer is enough of a sword for my ability to trigger."

Tohsaka groaned; Sakura's eyes widened.

"Senpai, are you saying that Archer is inside your mind?"

"Apparently, you are not supposed to create copies of living beings on demand. The effect on my mindscape looked like Gaia or something else resisted it. His memories and the blades he had stored pierced into my inner world and started to wreak havoc."

"That must have been why he started to disappear," said Tohsaka.

"Then something changed. Archer himself came."

"I used a Command Spell, dunderhead."

"He told me, Tohsaka, but it is still strange. I think my ability tried to 'record' him like all the blades I have ever seen, but the sheer magnitude of the process, trying to absorb another living being, especially with his level of power and hundreds of years of experience…" He shook his head. "It wasn't going to work. Then you burned a Spell, and he was able to cross. Once Archer was there we were able to herd all his stuff into an empty part of the Marble and make it his. He also asked for a TV."

"That little… When I get him back, he'll wish he had died."

Samurai said, "But how will he get back now, senpai? Can you Trace him?"

Shirou frowned. "That's a last resort. Archer is much more than a simple sword: my head would probably overload if I tried to reproduce everything that makes him, well, him."

Tohsaka blanched. "So what, I am without a Servant now just because you conveniently had living space set up for him?"

Shirou looked decidedly uncomfortable. "For now, yes. But there is a flipside."

Tohsaka said, "You know, Shirou, I seriously doubt anything can improve the situation, where we are even more likely to die than we were a day ago."

"…"

"Well, what are you waiting for, idiot?"

"Archer is a part of my soul now. And because he is me—"

A bright flash blinded everyone with light for a moment and when it was gone Shirou had a lightning shaped blunt dagger in his hand.

"What the hell is this?" asked Tohsaka. "A display weapon?"

"Rule-breaker. The Noble Phantasm of the current Caster, which can sever the bond between any Familiar and Magus and can break the bindings of any oath."

"Wow."

Shirou let the blade dissipate. The Magus was covered in sweat and breathing came with pain, but a small demonstration was worth it.

"It's foggy, but I now have all of Archer's swords, and he has a lot. We are lucky he served the Counterforce: unlike a normal Servant he can recall everything he has ever encountered."

"Ano… Senpai, what are the bad news? And isn't an older version of you being here proof that we can survive?"

"Him surviving in an alternative universe doesn't mean we'll make it here. To your second question, Archer isn't a simple sword. Because he is a thinking (if not strictly living) person, his energy is seeping into my system, supercharging the Magic Circuits. To be honest, I'm alive right now only because of Avalon in me and Saber being nearby."

Tohsaka sighed in exasperation which she did far too often around him for some reason. "Are you telling us that during this entire conversation your nerves were in turn regenerated and got destroyed? This shit again?"

"It's not critical. I can ignore the pain enough to strategize."

Surprisingly, it was Sakura who continued instead of Tohsaka who looked about ready to explode. She said, "Senpai, you should rest. Me, Tohsaka-senpai and Saber-san will take care of everything."

Tohsaka said, "I should really give up and stop assuming you will stop being an idiot and actually make an effort not to hurt yourself at every turn. Really, Shirou? You couldn't just give us the cliff notes? I'll go get some painkillers and something to help you sleep."

"But…"

"No arguing! There is nothing more to discuss, so be a good boy and sleep."

And so Shirou drifted off into uneasy sleep.

###

He and Tohsaka stood together on a plain. She was dressed in her nightgown, which might have been distracting under different circumstances. Now, however, she looked too terrified to be attractive. She reached for him, and he took her hand.

"Hey, Shirou."

"Yes?"

"Is this what I think it is?"

"I think so."

A small village stood on the plain: just a handful of houses huddled under a burning sun around a well. The buildings were decrepit and there were almost no people outside. Living people, that is.

The only street was covered in blood still pooling into a multitude of puddles and the air was thick with the cloyingly sweet smell of viscera. Here and there men were pinned to walls by swords, their useless guns lying nearby; others just lay in the streets. The ones killed by swords wore decent clothing: washed-out linen mostly, light and providing reasonable protection from the sun. The ones who died because of bullets were dressed in rags.

A man was pinned to the well in the village square with two falchions to the shoulders. He was gasping for air, and blood trickled from the left corner of his mouth—the man didn't have much time. His assault rifle lay ten meters from him. And between the man and the glaring sun stood Archer, shielding him with his shadow.

"You… you lured us."

There was no response from Shirou's alter ego: not a word, not a muscle twitch.

"And you… you waited. Waited until we started searching for his family, until we started killing. Why?"

"You needed to become an example," said Archer. "I'm not here for a discussion; where is your leader and your headquarters?"

"Why should I tell you? I'm dying anyway."

"Yes. But how you die… that is up to you."

Archer held back the man's head, summoned a flaming dagger, and started to calmly burn off his enemy's face, starting with the right ear. Shirou felt Tohsaka clutch his hand stronger. She looked like she was about to be sick.

The scenery shifted. Archer was walking away, and the villagers started to unbarricade their doors and tentatively peek outside. They looked at the scene of carnage: at their dead friends, at the cut up terrorists, and then at the lonely figure getting away.

"You said you were here to help us! To help our country!"

Archer kept walking. Somebody threw a stone and hit him in the back, but the man neither dodged, nor protected himself, nor stopped. He just kept walking to the east, the sun shining at his back and only dark night ahead of him.

Shirou said, "Is that what it really means to be a hero?"

A deep philosophical discussion might have occurred between him and Tohsaka at that point but it was not meant to be.

###

The young Magus dragged himself from the much-needed sleep with some effort: everything still ached and he could have used more rest. The red face of one Fujimura Taiga presently yelling at him got in the way, though.

"Good morning, Fuji-nee."

"Don't you 'good morning' me, Shirou! Who the hell is this?"

She pointed at Saber who had the good grace to look slightly abashed. Shirou sighed and moved to rub his forehead in exasperation, but had to settle for a shrug. His body wouldn't cooperate.

"This is Saber, a very distant relative of Kiritsugu from Europe."

"Are you adding family to your little club now?"

She stopped for a few moments before blanching.

"I'm next, aren't I? I will have to constantly resist your advances while you are growing your harem, right?"

"Fuji-nee, I don't even want to know how you managed to arrive at that conclusion. Saber is simply visiting Japan for a few weeks, and I offered her my place to stay because she can't afford a decent hotel. The house is half-empty anyway."

Taiga looked from him to Saber and back before crossing her arms and pouting.

"You know what, enough is enough. Stop lying, Shirou: while Dietrich-san is out of town I am your acting legal guardian—"

"You've just come up with that."

"—and so it's my duty to stop this reign of c debauchery! I, Fujimura Taiga, will make sure nothing indecent happens in this house. Or nothing more indecent than usual," She scrunched her nose. "Why are you in bed anyway? And why are the three of you skipping school? I had to cover for you! Do you know how sad it is for a teacher to be protecting delinquents?"

Ignoring all propriety, his elder sister devolved into exaggerated sobs.

Freshly-caffeinated Tohsaka wandered into the room with a small bowl of sweets, adding the sugar high to coffee jolt to keep herself awake. As it was past eleven, her state was much better than it normally was in the morning.

"Ah, Fujimura-sensei. I see you've met Shirou's new bodyguard?"

"What? Shirou, you told me she was your cousin."

Tohsaka said, "Of course, sensei. She is also Shirou's bodyguard repaying a debt to Kiritsugu."

"Come on, she is your age! And why would Shirou need guarding in the first place?!"

Rin's smile was all tangy sweetness. "Well, you see, it all started when Emiya Kiritsugu borrowed a million dollars from the Italian mob to support his habit of dating multiple women from high society, which is why he was forced to flee from Europe and settle down in Japan..."

Half an hour and a metric ton of bullshit later Fujimura sat in her chair staring into space. She had tried try her best to prove Saber wouldn't be able to protect her little brother by challenging her to a kendo duel that had lasted five seconds and ended in Taiga's defeat.

Luckily, Tohsaka and Sakura were able to bring their teacher out of a perpetual loop of humiliation and disconnect from reality by bribing the Tiger of Fuyuki with food and sending her back to school. In the chaos of multiple revelations about Emiya Kiritsugu's extremely chaotic love life they were able to slip in that Shirou was very, very sick and, as Rin and Sakura weren't able to decide who would take care of their boyfriend, they both stayed. The three would skip a couple days until the weekend and return to school on Monday if Shirou got better. Now it was only a matter of persuading a doctor the Tohsaka family had ties with to notify the school that all of them were down with a bad case of common cold.

Shirou stayed in bed, and sometime around noon everyone wandered into his room. Rin was reading a book on runic traditions from Western Europe, Sakura wiped his forehead with wet towels, and Saber calmly meditated in the corner. Rider was on the roof keeping an eye out for surrounding enemies.

Shirou said, "Tohsaka, I'm impressed. Did you rehearse that story?"

Tohsaka blushed and said, "Well, he did have that bad-boy look, didn't he?"

"Rin, you have way too much free time."

###

Saber hadn't thought she would ever be able to say so, but she missed her former Master. And not even Irisviel who had been full of kindness and had a keen sense of justice. No, she missed Kiritsugu with his ruthless and unpredictable ways which still had always been geared toward a singular goal. Emiya Kiritsugu's ideals were something she would never be able to accept. The man had been an assassin for justice—something that shouldn't have existed. Those who fought for the weak, those who fought for peace: they were supposed to either be knights, people with a code of honor, or they were terrorists. Ironically enough, both kinds of people tended to have a short life expectancy. Her long reign as the King of Knights was mostly due to the help of others and immortality bestowed by Avalon.

Saber was sitting in traditional Japanese style in her corner while Shirou bickered with his two lovers. Saber had every right to be old-fashioned. After all, Arturia was forever stuck in the Middle Ages, and the excursions she took from her hill of swords were just that—tours. She would always be the leader of the Knights of the Rounded Table. Her comrades, her enemies, her story, and her legend would always stay the same.

This was why Saber—no, Arturia—considered it her right not to adapt to the shims of whoever summoned her. If the way she had to take to save her country led through lands where her moral code wouldn't allow her to tread, she would die with dignity and be summoned again to for another try. There were prices she wasn't prepared to pay for victory.

Her current situation was different. It was not like Shirou, Rin, and Sakura did something profane or unlawful; they were simply three people who seemed to… work, she supposed. Despite the obvious differences, despite the constant jabs, despite the pressure their environment obviously placed on them to be more normal. And Saber hated to admit that the situation bothered her, that instead of focusing all of her attention on keeping her Master safe she devoted some of it to searching for cracks in their relationship, and that she got somewhat irritated when she saw none.

The traditions, the codes, and the laws were the principles she had lived by her whole life. They were necessary because she had seen countless times where the road took those who flew through everything by the seat of their pants. They mostly ended up either dead or like Morgana, may her black soul forever rest in peace.

So seeing people who didn't appear to have many restrictions or plans and yet were adept at realizing their goals made her doubt the way she had done things in the past, if only a little.

The doorbell rang.

Sakura said, "Senpai, Rider says there is someone by the door. He doesn't appear to be hostile, but there is a faint trace of mystical energies."

Shirou grew instantly alert; if anything, she had to give it to her Master that he took to war like fish to water. She had been afraid he would try to ignore the whole thing and continue with his ordinary life.

"Saber, come here," he said.

She walked up to him. There was a flash of light just as Shirou convulsed, and Tohsaka jumped from her chair. On her Master's chest lay Avalon.

"Master? But…"

Even after all the explanations, she still started when Avalon appeared with a flash of yellow light and sang to her with the full power of the original. Especially considering what Avalon was and where it came from. Shirou shouldn't have been able to understand most of the enchantments, not to mention replicate them, yet she couldn't feel the difference between this sheath and the one she had wielded in her time.

"Take it, just in case," Shirou said. "Rider will keep watch. There is no written rule about not attacking anyone during the day, and if there is enough of an advantage… somebody… can risk provoking the Overseer…"

The boy slipped into unconsciousness making Saber yet again marvel at the difference between the Masters of the two Wars she had been a part of. The previous one's participants had mostly been established Magi adept in their craft and set in their ways. In this one at least half of the Masters were school children who had barely got a hang of how the mystical world worked. It made her wonder. Her wish had been born out of necessity after decades of experience as a ruler; could Shirou's dream, whatever it was, compare?

Still, today wasn't the time for contemplation. Saber took Avalon with a nod and left the room just as Sakura moved to again wipe Shirou's brow with a wet towel.

With Rider's backup and her being at the top of her strength they could hold off most attackers that wouldn't be willing to level an entire block. Berserker could be a problem but the girl that had attacked them yesterday didn't appear to be insane, just a bit unstable. Assassin wouldn't show up in the open and Caster wouldn't move against somebody else's Workshop during the day. That left Lancer.

Saber strode out of the doors with her back straight and her head held high—she would always feel the weight of her crown. She made it two steps before breath became a boulder in her throat, and she had to focus not to stumble. It was all she could do not to scream in rage and run: either to flee or to attack.

Instead, the King of Knights walked up to the gate and spoke in a mildly interested tone. "Can I help you?"

Red eyes searched her own for a trace of recognition for a few moments before moving to her side with some disappointment. Then, as if he had jolted himself out of an unpleasant dream, her guest shrugged and swept across her body with a possessive, hungry gaze that belonged on a Dead Apostle on the hunt, not on a person.

"You should move," he said.

"Excuse me, who are you?"

"Have patience, it isn't yet time for my name to be revealed. But the playwright has grown arrogant: he thinks to deny the king his chance to play the part I want in the coming story. He wants the biggest threat to be destroyed right now, and where is the fun in that? Where is the chase that makes victory have value?" The man grinned ferally. "What he doesn't understand is that for a man who has already won the battles that have yet to begin, ordinary threats are like mosquitos in another room. They only buzz on the edge of perception and don't even sting. So I say again, move. Or the witch on the mountain and the mad dog with his little child will wipe you off the face of the Earth come sunset."

The man gave Saber another once-over, turned, and walked away waving goodbye with his right hand.

He wasn't ignorant, this blond young man of lanky build dressed in a plain white t-shirt and jeans. He knew who Saber was and there was no doubt in her mind that he could easily sense Rider and perhaps even the Masters inside. It is just that the word 'threat' didn't exactly exist in the man's vocabulary.

For he was Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, and his only vulnerability was arrogance of planetary proportions and exploiting even that was nigh-impossible due to the sheer level of power the Heroic Spirit possessed.

It took Saber fifteen seconds to get back into her Master's room.

"Master. Tohsaka-san, Matou-san. Did any of you know that Gilgamesh has survived the previous War?"

Shirou looked like he had just swallowed a lemon. "I found out when I glimpsed some of Archer's memories. While we are on topic. Saber, Archer managed to get through his War without finding out much about you, but it evidently didn't end well." He peered straight into her eyes. "Tell us, how is it that you can remember Gilgamesh at all?"

It occurred to her then that Shirou still had all three of his Command Spells.

###

Shirou could have sworn his Servant was about to slap herself on the forehead. It served her right. On the battlefield, it was vital to have all the relevant information both about your enemies and allies, and although she had given him a run-down of her abilities, Saber hadn't explained why she couldn't go into Spirit form or why she enjoyed real food despite being supplied with Mana by him.

Wait, a seemingly physical body and food? He might have been overthinking it all along.

Shirou groaned. "Sakura, congratulations."

The girl pointed to herself with some confusion. "Me? Senpai, what did I do?"

"You are the only Master in the room who managed to summon a somewhat normal Servant. Saber, you are human, aren't you?"

All the confirmation he needed was his Servant hanging her head.

"But, but that would mean she was brought here from her birthplace?" Tohsaka asked. "You must be the original King Arthur then! How would you even get here, to this time?"

"I made a deal. To save my county from civil war and chaos I would fight in this War." The words tumbled out of Saber like rocks heralding an avalanche. "To again be the pillar that others can lean on and to hold my beloved England together, I would serve others and help them achieve their dreams. In exchange for this promise, the Grail froze me at the moment of my death. Forever I shall wait for summons at the scene of my last battle until my wish is granted— Why are you looking at each other like that?"

Once again, Shirou had to consider the potential consequences of him telling the truth to a volatile girl—were there any other kinds of girls? Only in this case the girl in question was a legendary king whose formidable power was kept in check only by even more impressive discipline.

"Sakura, call Rider," he said. "Saber, I need you to promise me you will listen until the end of my story. You won't like what I'm about to tell, and if you didn't draw the conclusions yourself from the past War, I'm not confident you will take it calmly. You need to give me a knight's word."

The expression Saber wore at the moment was the closest he had seen the King of Knights to being irritated or perplexed. She didn't hesitate long. "I accept. Speak."

It wasn't the phrase itself but the tone with which she spoke it that made Shirou relax. Those weren't the words of Saber, his Servant. No, those were the words of Arturia of Camelot, King, and that person would never betray a promise.

"The Grail has been corrupted some time before the previous War. We don't know the exact circumstances, but it appears that somebody tried to cheat yet again and broke the system. It was probably Einzberns. What matters is that the Grail cannot function properly anymore." He sighed, then groaned in pain. "You should be able to see it yourself: Archer has been summoned, and he is a Counter Guardian, not a proper Heroic Spirit. From what my father told me, a man who showed absolutely no training as a Magus was able to become a Master during the previous War. Half the Masters in this war—me, Sakura, and Tohsaka—don't even have a wish because we know the price the Grail would exact, yet the system still accepted us as participants. Sakura," he said, "has a chunk of the old Grail embedded inside her. If all the Servants would step back and be ready to flee, she can show you what it is like."

After hesitating for a few moments, Saber moved toward the window while Sakura stepped a bit out of the room and into the corridor. The Matou heir focused, her face contorted in pain, and then a thing manifested in her palm. A tiny tendril composed of pure darkness that nevertheless stretched as far as it could towards Saber while simultaneously starting to wrap its creator's hand in the goo it was composed of.

The smell hit Shirou at once, reminding him that no matter how many times he witnessed what resided in Sakura, he would never get used to the cloying perfume that reeked of decay and ozone that permeated the air. Compared to even a tiny piece of the Grail, the worms that lived inside his girlfriend were cuddly harmless critters.

Saber instinctively flinched back, pressing her back against the window pane until Sakura smothered the tendril with visible effort.

"I've trained but it's still almost impossible to control," she said.

"A human who has pieces of the Grail lodged inside them becomes a secondary Lesser Grail and gains the ability to corrupt spirits," said Shirou. "Kiritsugu died because of the curse's effect. We are lucky that Sakura's Element and Origin are so neutral, and that she is used to foreign mystical presences inside her. There still will be a point when removing the Grail will become a priority."

"If the Grail still has its primary function, then I don't care about what it has become as long as I can save my country," said Saber.

"Would you be willing to kill this country then? The artefact has become a twisted manifestation of the law of equivalent exchange. Originally it was supposed to gather energy from the ley line hub under the Ryuudou temple, put this energy into Servants, and then grant a wish after six out of seven Servants returned to it." He continued. "Now the thing uses the power it gathers to spread its corruption and siphon death and suffering into performing what is asked of it in the most twisted way possible." Shirou slowed down tried to speak in a gentle tone. "That is what my father saw in the Grail at the end of the War. That is why he ordered you to destroy it with two Command Spells instead of wishing for the end to all conflict. Had he wished for it, the Grail would have likely killed everyone in the city and birthed another Primate Murder from that destruction before proceeding to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth. This is what you have been summoned by. This is what will be unleashed if any of us falter."

He then took his eyes off Saber and stared into space that smelled faintly of a different kind of death than the one the Grail promised. "Rider, I asked Sakura to call you because you also need to know the stakes. Saber's dream is impossible at any reasonable cost."

The purple-haired woman materialized at the foot of his bed with the huge nails she used as weapons in her hands. Her knuckles were white from the force she gripped them with. Where before the woman had been completely emotionless and almost doll-like, she now bore an expression of feral anger on the visible lower half of her face and looked ready to pounce. Seeing her posture, Saber immediately summoned her armor and invisible sword, and interposed herself between the furious Servant and her Master.

Shirou continued as if nothing was going on. "The dreams that you held aren't gone, we just need to find a different way to fulfill them. We would like to offer the both of you to continue living here."

He would have liked to think that Rider blinked at that point.

"I don't see how that would be possible without the Grail," she said.

The headache that had been building during that past fifteen minutes reached the intensity of a drill making its way through his right temple, so Shirou motioned for Tohsaka to continue the explanation. The girl looked quite nervous at the threat of an explosion of violence, but her voice was steady.

"It is possible to maintain the Servants without the Primary Grail. Shirou has Avalon embedded inside him which makes keeping Saber here much easier; I have enough energy to maintain Archer; Sakura can absorb energy through that ability of hers. There is also a multitude of Mana transfer methods available to us. While Archer is… indisposed, I don't feel any sort of drain, which makes me able to donate excess energy to the other Masters. But those are plans B, C, and so on." She grinned. "Plan A is to keep the Grail War going."

Rider stood at attention for a while before relaxing. "You intend to keep the Grail active by not killing all the Servants."

It wasn't a question.

"Precisely. Of the three founding families, only Einzberns will resist, and while they are powerful, they cannot compete with three or more Servants that aren't fighting each other. The Church doesn't care about the whole thing after the fiasco that was the previous War, and the Association would happily kill for a chance to have Servants available for enforcing Sealing Designations. Even if they would probably attempt to slap the Masters themselves with them."

Rider lowered her weapons and took a step back; Saber also put away her invisible sword but kept her eyes on the other Servant. She asked, "Shirou. What would happen if you burned through all your Command Spells right now?"

"The summoning would cancel. Seeing as Sakura is in the room, your energy would go into her, strengthening the curse. If we are lucky she would become somewhat more unstable, otherwise the corruption would spill out and consume Rider and probably me since I'm now a host to a spiritual being." He paused, letting the message settle. "After that there would probably be a rampage resulting in deaths of thousands before an Enforcers brigade or someone from the Burial Agency would come in here and destroy Sakura and the Primary Grail. Seeing where it is located, that would result in the ley lines destabilizing over entire Japan, likely resulting in a death count that would number millions. Then it would be over."

Everyone appeared to be convinced.

"I will need to think on this, Shirou," said Saber. "If I find out this is all some sort of trick, you will die."

"Fair enough."

Saber had mirrored her Master in bluntness. Perhaps they were more suited for each other than he had previously thought.

Rider actually smiled at the exchange. "I might just end up liking you, Saber."

There were incredulous stares from all around.

"If the times have changed, and I can be treated as something other than a tool, I will stay. If not, then I ask that you find a way to release me after we are done. For now, I am yours to command, Master Sakura Matou."

The woman who had been a beauty, a blasphemer, a killer, and a monster vanished leaving behind only a faint smell of Mana that reminded Shirou of blood and sea.

Tohsaka exhaled loudly expressing the relief all the mortal occupants of the room must have felt. Servants weren't machines or mindless beasts, and they had to be convinced or coerced to participate in the fight. Rin had warned him before of not sharing the Grail's true nature with them but the situation had already devolved beyond the point where compartmentalizing information could be a viable strategy.

As Shirou finally let himself relax and start drifting off he noticed Saber's uneasy expression and made an effort to stay awake a little longer.

Saber said, "We still need to come up with a strategy against Gilgamesh, Shirou. He warned me that the house wasn't safe and, although he is a despicable excuse for both a human being and a ruler, he can mostly be trusted. With his twisted mentality, he has no need for lying."

"If you can keep me alive until I recover, me and Archer can probably take care of his summoning ability…"

At this point Shirou's body decided that enough was enough, and oblivion took him. He was not aware of Sakura and Rin leaving his room on tiptoes or of Saber moving to his side. All he could dream of was a hill of swords and Archer sleeping in a sitting position, his back propped against one of Berserker's immense swords lodged in the ground.

###

Tohsaka and Sakura went to the kitchen. The younger sister started busying herself with cutting meat and vegetables for dinner: all of them would need some strength to survive the night.

Rin realized that it was the first time she had been alone with Sakura since the two of them and Shirou started out their unidentifiable relationship. Somehow he had always been there to pull attention to himself and keep her from overthinking everything. Or thinking about it at all, if she was honest with herself: self-denial was pretty much a job requirement for any aspiring Magus.

"You should marry him, nee-san," said Sakura.

And that had just moved the atmosphere from 'decidedly uncomfortable' to 'please let somebody attack the house to get me out of this'. "Don't be ridiculous, Sakura."

Her sister didn't look up from contemplating her nails. "I'm broken, sister. I thought I could be strong with your support, but after brother and grandfather… when we went to sleep this morning I started thinking who I will blame next for ruining my life. Kotomine for manipulating the War? Our father and Kiritsugu are dead already, so maybe Shirou?"

Tohsaka slapped her and Sakura fell on her ass with a shocked expression on her face.

Rin said, "Don't you get that empty look in your eyes! Look, Sakura, I won't pretend I know what your life has been like because I don't!" Tohsaka cringed, as even mentioning that brought her pain. "I know it sucked and I'm sorry. But the people who really meant to hurt you? They all got their just desserts. The fake priest might be a blight upon this city; Gilgamesh may be someone who can actually threaten the entire world; a lot of other people can probably be blamed in some roundabout way: founding families, Tokugawa Shogunate, Santa Claus. You need to stop, get a fucking grip, and move on. And, for Root's sake, don't be so hard on yourself: we've just stomped Zouken into dirt yesterday—I'd worry if you already recovered."

Rin offered her a hand; she didn't take it. That made Tohsaka angry.

"I'm probably not the best person at pep talk but I'm what you have," she said. "Stop playing a freaking damsel in distress, all right? You are stronger than that." She made a room-encompassing gesture with her hands. "If you haven't noticed, this whole War is full of people who could use a shrink. I mean, Shirou didn't get the self-preservation page in his 'introduction to life booklet'; your brother and grandfather were all kinds of fucked up; Archer is hopping around worlds to kill his younger clueless self; Ilya is descended from a magical construct… Do I need to continue?"

This time Sakura did take her hand and rose.

"No. Thank you, senpai."

"And, for Root's sake, call me Rin or sister."

"Ehm… Not 'sister'. It just feels wrong with, you know…"

Oh, how she knew.

"Not like we grew up together. And besides, Magi don't have much use for those kind of morals anyway. What works works, why put a label on it? I know you enjoy it."

"I suppose, sen… I mean, Rin." Then Sakura giggled completely breaking the atmosphere. "Sorry, it just feels strange to call you that. I'm much more comfortable with Tohsaka-senpai, if you don't mind."

"Do what you want, you insane little sister. Just know that Shirou loves you in whatever way he can with that hot mess he calls his soul. And I do too. In a seemingly normal, if not socially acceptable way."

They stayed in companionable silence for a few minutes before Sakura spoke up again.

"So does that mean you won't be marrying senpai? Can I take him then?" At her incredulous expression her sister added with a playful smile. "What? Not like Japan supports polygamy. Or were you considering moving somewhere a lot more free-spirited, Rin?" Sakura dropped the act and giggled. "This is fun. I see now why you tease Shirou all the time."

Some days she had to wonder why she even bothered to try to make the lunatics surrounding her more normal if it always backfired.

###

They moved out shortly before sunset; thankfully, Shirou was able to walk, even if Saber had to support him, and he had a bunch of healing blades on him and in him. Matou's house had been thoroughly razed so it was not an option, and Tohsaka's mansion wasn't a good choice either as everybody in town had her home address. Even if they survived an assault there, the house probably wouldn't, and it wasn't like the Tohsaka family was swimming in money. Sometimes being a practitioner of jewel-based magic just sucked. Matous were loaded though. It was a small mystery why the police hadn't shown up for to question them, but no one would be surprised if it was somehow Kotomine's doing. For all his extreme faults, the fake priest hated Zouken, and he might have pulled a few strings to prevent any sort of an investigation into the fire that had destroyed the house. Plus, it helped that the elder of the family himself didn't appear to have much in the way of an official imprint, being over one hundred years old.

So they rented a room. The place even had a hot spring where they could soak and let their troubles fade away.

As for why they were so sure no Magus has followed them to that particular traditional Japanese hotel? They had used a truck to go there and ordered food through room-service. No Magus would stoop so low as to investigate the moving company his enemies might have hired. They would try mystical methods of divining their location way before that and, aside from their Servants, the three Magi didn't have anything on them that was easy to scry for.

It was late at night and Shirou, Rin, and Sakura were soaking in a bath they had all to themselves due to it being a weekday.

"You two sure you don't want to get in? The water is great," said Tohsaka.

"A knight must always be ready."

They might have believed Saber had she not been red as a tomato.

"Ah, I forget: you don't have shared open air springs in England, you poor people."

Saber was far too stoic to answer, so Shirou decided to defend his Servant. "Lack of proper hygiene in medieval England was lucky for her as it would have been impossible for Saber to hide her gender otherwise."

Tohsaka perked up at that. "Actually, now that we have some time… I've been curious for a while now. How did you make it work for so many years? I mean, it helps that whatever you eat doesn't immediately magically get transferred to your chest…"

"Hey!"

"Oh, shut up, Sakura. I swear, it's like you have some sort of super-power and it sure as hell isn't genetic judging by what happens to me if I let go for a week. No, Saber, seriously? How long were you able to keep everyone fooled? How? Did people figure it out?"

Saber blushed. Shirou interjected. "Tohsaka, I'm not an expert, but I don't think it's polite to ask a girl her age?"

"I think that would only count if I were a guy."

Saber mumbled something indistinct and Rider, who had materialized some time before, chuckled. "She says you count, witch."

"Is that how it is, Saber? Maybe you are just jealous, huh? I've seen how you look at Shirou…"

"I've done nothing of the sort!"

Shirou tuned out their bickering: he was still not at one hundred percent but there was something different about the way air felt against his skin or maybe it was the smell… He cursed.

"We have to get out. Now!"

The girls froze as he scrambled to get out of the bath. Or tried to. His legs didn't listen to him as they should have, so Shirou ended up falling face-first into the water. Thankfully, Saber didn't ask questions and simply picked up Shirou and cleared the hot spring in one giant leap.

The air shimmered where his head had been half a second ago and there was a sound, like a ghost of wind blowing across a distant plain. By that point Rider had pulled Tohsaka and Rin out of the water and had them behind her.

The strange smell intensified again and the air seemed to flicker just a bit.

"Rider. What is wrong with you?! He is right there!" Saber sounded positively panicked, but then a new voice joined the chaos.

"She can't see him, Saber. But I sure as hell can. Gae…"

There was a sharp spike of Mana behind Shirou and he had to suppress a shiver which had nothing to do with his privates flapping in the wind. What he felt was pure, concentrated death, and the only consolation was that it was focused on somebody else. The hellishly suffocating feeling drowned out everything around him, and Shirou turned to look at the source.

A man in skin-tight blue armor was crouching at a balcony on the second floor of the inn. His eyes shone with animal ferocity, and he was crouching low while preparing to throw a red spear that was taller than him. It was that spear that exuded an incredible amount of visible demonic energy. That was a Noble Phantasm being activated? What the hell were mortals even doing in a fight where such things got thrown around? He indistinctly remembered the Phantasm's powers from his mental exchange with Archer, but seeing it in person was something completely different.

And then it all stopped.

"Tsk… That is some serious spell if he can hide even from me," said Lancer. "Hey, Saber, you see him?"

"He started running as soon as you appeared."

"Good. May I just say you ladies are the loveliest thing I have seen since coming to this world?"

He grinned at Sakura and Rin who were still very much naked.

"Lancer, you are a pig, did I tell you that? Everyone, cover yourself up before you catch a cold. And Shirou? Your security is shit! How can you even call yourself Kiritsugu's son?" The very familiar voice belonged to a certain red-haired woman that was limping toward them from the entrance to inn proper.

"She is a Master, Shirou," said Saber. 'We should kill her."

Shirou mumbled something incoherent, and the man in blue chuckled from above.

"We both have troublesome companions, don't we, boy? But, seriously, any of you try anything and I will murder whoever I fancy before any of your attacks can hit me. I'm awesome like that."

The sword maker looked sharply at Saber.

"We won't be killing anyone. They've just saved my life from what must have been Assassin. Hello, Bazett."

"Hello, Shirou."

Chapter end notes

This chapter has turned out to be full of exposition and secondary character development. While I love describing sexplosions (term coined by a tabletop friend of mine) as much as any other fic writer, I felt it was necessary to give the Servants some love.

Now, about the mechanics of Archer ending up inside the Reality Marble. This is my attempt at giving Shirou something that would make him capable of standing his ground against the major antagonists on more or less equal terms. Story-wise, I think it is necessary because Berserker and Gilgamesh are ridiculously overpowered compared to other Heroic Spirits. Archer alone couldn't kill Berserker in the Fate route of the VN so I needed something a little extra.

Mechanically, I don't see any reason why a Reality Marble cannot house a living soul. Nrvnqsr Chaos, who has 666 beings inside him, has established precedent. Chaos's body is actually a Reality Marble which is able to constantly actualize a Mystery on par with True Magic at the price of limiting the Bounded Field to his physical form. Archer is a spiritual being so trapping him inside Shirou seemed plausible to me. Plus, you know, I think myself quite clever for treating Archer as any other sword. Of course, it was only possible because Shirou in my fic is more attuned to weapons than he ever was in the original.

If you like this story and have something to say, please consider leaving a review. Feedback makes authors write better.

Replies to some reviews of the past chapter:

FanDr. Well, thank you. Exposition and action have always come easily to me; it's character development and dialogue that I need to push myself to write decently. The 'imouto' typo was embarrassing, to be honest: I'm fairly good at Japanese so confusing 'younger brother' with 'younger sister' is unacceptable. Fixed.

AzureStorms. I've always found Fate/Stay Night's humor to be one of the most compelling parts of the story. Not that action, drama, or the magical system aren't great, because they are; it's just that the events that happen during the day, the childish personalities of most characters (let's face it, for all her intellect even Tohsaka acts like a believable high school student), and the hilarious ways in which they interact and misunderstand each other—this is the spice I believe makes Fate the masterpiece it is. So I'm trying to be true to the original here.


	8. Hellenic Justice

Author's Intro

Thank you for the many kind and even a few detailed reviews! Hearing that you guys like this fic makes the work go that much easier.

I'm sorry for missing a month in my updates. Autumn has decided to bring flu and a shitty mood with it, and I had a couple of really unproductive weeks. Thankfully, I'm all better now.

As always, I thank the kindly Spirit of Copyright that I don't own the Nasuverse and write this for fun and no profit. Nasuverse is in much better hands.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

 _Thoughts._

 _"_ _Arias and other Mysteries."_

 ** _"_** ** _Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."_**

I swear, damn hyphens, commas, colons, and dashes will cry at my funeral if our relationship continues to progress at the speed it does. But I'm confident enough not to apologize for my punctuation anymore. Much.

Enjoy, full notes at the end of the chapter.

Hellenic Justice

Gilgamesh was taking rounds of his kingdom, and he didn't like what he saw.

Memories of times long past taunted him with the possibility of revival. He daydreamed of the palaces that challenged the gods with their golden splendor, of deeds poets would kill to witness, of women perfect not so much in their appearance but in their mastery of both seduction and surrender, as imaginative or passive as his whim called for.

Man was stronger then, land was untamed, and one didn't need to turn to a bloody picture box unimaginatively called 'TV' to escape from the dull promenade life made toward unavoidable death.

Kotomine had been a bore lately, far too upset with some of the play's characters knowing more of the script than they should have. Gilgamesh would have empathized, had there been anything left in creation capable of challenging his right to rule. Things being what they were, Gilgamesh was simply bored, and being bored in the middle of a war was something he didn't find pleasant.

Twilight came and the eastern horizon lit up, dredging the stair to Ryuudou Temple out of darkness and throwing them into murky shadows.

He flicked off some imaginary dust off his shoulder and took the first step.

###

"So, any of you girls single?"

"Excuse me? Lancer, we are enemies," said Saber.

"Well, yes, but we have a truce, don't we? And after this fight is done, only one might stay here, and the rest of us will vanish. Memories, everything—gone." The Irish Hound's cheerful tone of voice didn't match what he was saying at all. "Aren't you interested in having fun while we can?"

"I'll date you if we'll have the chance," said Rider.

Cú Chulainn paused before replying, "Oh? Somebody loves danger. Great!"

Their rooms were tiny, and nobody had bothered to soundproof parts of the suite from each other.

In the next room, Fraga rubbed the bridge of her nose and made a long-suffering groan.

"Aren't you going to stop him?" asked Tohsaka.

"It's useless. That man loved to fight, drink, and screw in life. He is not going to change now. And after the life he had, I'm not going to blame him."

"Master, I heard that!" said Lancer from the next room.

"And?"

"It's true but it still hurts!"

"Oh, shut up." Bazett cracked her knuckles. "Shirou, I'd punch you in the face for this stunt if it weren't for your Servant in the next room."

Theirs was a three-room Japanese-style suite. Everything went into built-in closets and there was a lot of space, but seven people was still pushing it. Even being one of the fabled Enforcers didn't make Fraga immune to pain, so she was half-lying while being propped up by pillows. The glaringly cumbersome cast on her right leg enticed someone to ask how she had got it. Furrowed brows and a glare helped everyone but Shirou combat the impulse.

"Was it Kotomine?"

"I have no idea, but I suspect," she said. "Damn that bastard… after all those times I bailed him out on jobs! I got the job, came here, got a womanizing bloodthirsty drunk as a Servant." She pointed to the Servants' room. "Exactly what I wanted. Me and Kotomine go way back. We did a lot of work together when I was just starting out. Still, I remembered your warnings and kept Lancer close, especially after the Association representative sent here dropped off the grid," she shifted, trying to find a comfortable position for her cast. "Good thing Laner's class has best Projectile Defense and speed, or I wouldn't get away with just a broken leg. We've been on the run ever since the attack."

"And you have no idea what is hunting you?" Shirou asked.

"Somebody who can fire swords at people." She grimaced. "I can't believe how weird this sounds… We thought it was Archer. I gambled he wasn't one of yours, and it looks like I was right."

He didn't meet her eyes.

"Come on, Shirou. You are strange, but I'd like to think I know you well enough to be sure you aren't a sadist. That asshole was toying with us. Besides, your Servant is clearly Saber."

The three younger Masters looked at each other. Tohsaka nodded.

"Some people are cheating," Shirou said.

"No surprise."

"Berserker is Heracles. Kotomine has kept the Archer from the previous War."

"Shit."

Bazett looked away from them and tried to scratch under the cast with a pencil. Tohsaka raised an eyebrow.

"Waver briefed me," Bazett replied to the unasked question.

Tense silence settled in.

"We should go see the newest Avengers!" Cú Chulainn's voice was barely muffled by the walls.

"I don't see how watching dressed-up humans beat each other can be fun," said Rider.

"Fraga-sensei, when did you find the time to watch a movie?" asked Sakura.

"We were on the run, ducking into buildings whenever we could. One of those turned out to be a movie theater. I confess, my Servant is more upbeat than I suspected."

"We all got weird Servants, because the Grail is corrupted and will summon anything famous. But the Hound of Ireland is a real hero, so I don't know what you are complaining about, Fraga-san," said Tohsaka.

"Call me Bazett. Formality is worth shit right now."

In the nearby room Lancer was briefing Rider on the wonderfully tragic love life of Tony Stark.

"Then again, maybe my Servant isn't so bad," Rin said.

"Actually, where is your Servant, Rin?" Bazett asked.

Shirou interrupted to save Tohsaka from an explanation he would rather avoid. "We need a strategy. There are three groups left: Berserker and his Master; Caster, Assassin and their Masters; Kotomine and Gilgamesh." He frowned for a moment. "We will leave Gilgamesh for last: he is the most powerful and isn't currently interested in fighting us. That leaves Berserker and Caster."

"Hold on a second. You still owe me a proper explanation, Shirou," said Bazett.

Tohsaka wrinkled her nose as you would when offered your aunt's favorite dish for the hundredth time. That weird one: with alternating layers of pickles, fish, and cream. And a cherry on top.

"We need to write a primer," she said. "'Everything wrong with the Grail in ten bullet points' or something."

Shirou looked out into the window where night was ceding its domain to a tentative morning. "We just don't have the time. Long story short, the previous Wars corrupted the Grail, using it will destroy this town, destroying it will destroy several towns. Kotomine is a sadist, Gilgamesh is an all-powerful madman, Berserker is overpowered, Caster is holed up in the most magically powerful place around."

"You'd think I'd remember pissing into Barthomeloi's tea, kid." Bazett smiled wryly and shook her head. "But apparently I got smashed one night, did it, and forgot. Then she sent me into this clusterfuck to get back at me."

"If things go our way, you'll keep Lancer, advance through Association ranks, and everybody will be happy, except for Kotomine and Gilgamesh," Shirou said, shrugging. "Because they'll be dead. Are you in?"

Lancer entered the room, sporting his best Cheshire Cat grin. "Hey, boss, guess what?"

"You've got a date, Lancer."

"Hey, how did you know that?"

"Lancer, the walls are literally glorified paper. Congratulations, now sit down. We are about to receive orders from a bunch of kids."

He plopped down and eyed Shirou with curiosity. "I have to admit, man, when the boss told me about you, I thought she was exaggerating," he said. "What's the plan?"

Shirou turned to Tohsaka. "Rin?"

"Finally saw the wisdom of asking me when we need a strategy, dumbass? Have you recovered?"

Only Tohsaka could put tenderness and worry into 'dumbass', Shirou thought.

"I can move, but I won't be able to spam Mysteries for a while. Or shoot my main bow. Another 30 hours or so before I fully adapt."

Tohsaka's foot twitched towards his shin.

"I mean, before I heal. Don't know why I said that."

Tohsaka said, "Then Caster is out. We don't have the firepower to take her and Assassin out."

Saber, who had joined them moments before, raised an aristocratic eyebrow, and Rin glared at her. "You know what I mean, Saber. We need spammable attacks or something that has a one hundred percent chance of hitting Caster. She is a ranged fighter."

"Boss, I think we've found some ass to kick," said Lancer. "

He wore a grin of a cat having spotted a crippled mouse lathered in barbecue sauce. Bazett cursed under her breath in an accent so thick even Shirou didn't understand her English.

"Lancer, be serious. See this?" She thumped her crutch against the floor. "I have zero mobility. And when did you three meet Caster?"

Tohsaka made a dismissive gesture.

"Rin?"

"Just a second, Shirou. Yes, this could work." She adopted a lecturer's pose. "We don't need fancy tricks against the Berserker, just a lot of firepower. Saber's Phantasm is anti-fortress and the Einzberns actually have a fortress." Corners of her mouth stretched, but it could hardly be called a smile. "Berserker is fast, but not fast enough. We can send Bazett and Lancer to the Temple as a distraction, make sure we don't get hit by Caster."

"Again, broken leg."

"I'll get to it in a moment, Bazett-san. Saber, what do you think? You've fought that monster."

The King of Knights didn't hesitate. "I can take him at long range."

Bazett chuckled. It was a sound completely lacking in mirth. "You can take Heracles, huh? Do you even know what his Phantasm is?"

"No idea," said Shirou. "But he isn't wearing the skin of the Nemean Lion, and he can't use his bow in that state. Heracles's legend isn't tied to some specific object anyway, so it's probably something to do with his godlike status—some passive ability." He hesitated for a moment before deciding to continue. "This is the guy who, according to legend, supported the sky a while instead of Atlas, after all." He glanced at Arturia. "But if Saber says she can win against him, I believe her."

"Let's just hope it's not the Apples of Hesperides. It would be a real pain to discover he can heal from any injury by biting a piece of fruit," said Tohsaka, frowning.

"What about this then?" Bazett gestured to her broken leg. "All of you seem to be ignoring that I can't walk, not to mention storm a fortified mountain temple. Do you have a good enough healer to fix me?" She paused for a second and grimaced. "Or at least restore functionality. Please don't tell me you'll amputate the leg and transplant an undead dog in its place. I like my legs."

"They are rather shapely…" said Tohsaka in a voice so low Shirou barely heard her.

"That was oddly specific and anatomically impossible, Bazett," said Shirou.

"You'd be surprised what a Magus can do."

"I've got a Mystery that can heal your injuries in a few hours. No undead dogs," said Shirou. "If your bones are aligned properly inside the cast, that is."

"You'll need to keep it out of your report, Fraga-sensei," added Sakura.

"Don't worry, Lancer threatened a doctor, it's just a fracture. Why the secrecy, though?"

Shirou said, "It's something the researchers at the Clock Tower would like to get their hands on, and I would rather not get dissected."

Bazett went silent for nearly a minute, and even when she spoke, her frown didn't disappear. "You know I can't do that, Shirou. I assume you are trying to avoid a Sealing Designation, and those exist for a reason."

"But—"

"I know they get abused from time to time for politics and research, but Magecraft is dangerous. I'll let what you've told me slide, but if I actually see whatever it is that you are able to do, I won't stay silent." Her face cleared up a bit. "Though you might be just overestimating whatever you can do."

Sakura pouted, Tohsaka grimaced, Shirou stayed impassive. He then got up and went out the door, gesturing for Saber to follow him.

"What's he doing?" asked Lancer.

Tohsaka shrugged. "Beats me."

There was a controlled burst of Mana from outside and Shirou came back in. He handed Bazett some oblong object wrapped in cloth. "This is Saber's Noble Phantasm. Please don't unwrap it, or we will be forced to kill you." His tone was level. "It will heal your leg in a few hours. I hope you won't mind staying in one room with Saber."

"I won't let her out of my sight, Master," said the King of Knights.

"What is it?" asked Bazett.

"All you need to know is that it will fix you with no side-effects. I'm sorry, Bazett-san, but we may still become enemies. As you've pointed out, you can't go against orders."

If Fraga had any suspicions about what she had been handed, she didn't show it. Sakura yawned.

"Let's rest. The Servants will keep an eye out," said Shirou.

"Caster knows where we are, Shirou! We can't stay," Tohsaka riposted.

"We certainly can't move, Tohsaka, not in this condition. The night is almost over."

###

"Sakura!" Tohsaka said in as low voice as she could manage without whispering—whispers carried.

"What?"

"Keep your hands to yourself, some of us are trying to sleep."

"Okay."

They lied in silence a little bit.

"So, any of you actually asleep?" asked Sakura.

"No," answered Shirou and Tohsaka.

"How about a shower then? Together?"

They had drawn the blinds, but it wasn't enough to completely block sunlight, so Tohsaka's eye roll was perfectly visible. The three of them were resting in one of the rooms—Rider guarded them. The futons were comfortable, the hotel was nice, and none of them could manage even a fitful nap. For Shirou, the reason was that he was far too agitated. Every footstep in the corridor was an assassin, every minute fluctuation in Mana was a magical missile being fired at them. Footsteps turned out to be maids—Rider informed them—and the Mana fluctuation was from Lancer sneezing. Still, anxiety didn't fade.

He blamed it on Archer's memories. He suspected Archer was much more human than him, and that was the primary reason for him falling as far as he did. He remembered hating Gilgamesh with all his heart. It was distracting.

"Okay."

"'Okay' what, Shirou?" asked Tohsaka.

"Let's shower."

"You do understand that the sound of running water will be impossible to hide? And that someone might attack and we won't hear a thing?"

He shook his head. "Us listening isn't any use: Rider is just better. We need to be in top shape by evening, and we will be reeking and exhausted instead if things continue like this. Better clean up and tire ourselves out."

"Shirou, you are the worst romantic since a caveman proposed to his woman by gifting her mammoth offal," said Tohsaka.

Sakura chuckled.

They ordered Rider to keep watch and got up. It was good that the place was expensive because moderately priced establishments couldn't afford the luxury of a separate decent-sized bathroom. Sakura started the water, and Shirou took off his shirt.

"Shirou? Why the fuck is there blood on your shoulders?"

He shrugged. It wasn't relevant, after all. "I was covered in blood by the time Saber dragged me home, and then you two cleaned me and put me into bed. I was too tired to shower before going into the onsen. Then Assassin came."

"So you've been like this the whole time, senpai?" asked Sakura.

"It's no big deal."

Tohsaka slapped Shirou on the back of the head, gestured him into the shower cabin, and followed with Sakura. It got crowded, but none of them minded.

Hot water blasted from up top and started to wash away flakes of dried blood from Shirou. He had got it all over himself when he started spasming after seeing Archer, and a few spots still remained. Tohsaka and Sakura picked up a sponge each and started to wash him. Tohsaka was methodical, her straight strokes against his skin a little forceful; Sakura was gentle, covering Shirou in soap in slow circular motions. Neither of them stopped when the blood was all gone.

After they were done, they moved on to Sakura, then to Tohsaka.

Shirou said, "How you girls manage your long hair is beyond me. It takes so much time."

"Shirou?"

"Yes, Tohsaka?"

"Since you are Mister Responsible, I order you to make sure we don't break hotel property."

Shirou wasn't the most perceptive guy when it came to relationships, but even he didn't need to ask anything when he felt two naked bodies press into him.

 _Shower cabin, huh. Now how do I get enough leverage…_

###

Lancer said, "They are showering together, Master."

"They probably couldn't sleep."

"You can't sleep too, boss."

"I'm just making sure this artefact doesn't do any harm." Bazett gestured to the bundle pressed against her leg. "I'll grab five hours or so a little later. It should be over soon."

"Damn. That must be so hot."

"Why don't you go watch?" asked Bazett.

"And get emasculated by Rider?" He shrugged. "Besides, peeping on people I so not my style."

Throughout the conversation Saber had kept silent, frowning.

"You seem troubled, Saber," said Lancer.

"I was brought up in a different culture from them, Lancer. It doesn't interfere with their fighting, so I have no reason to bother Master."

"The same goes for all of us, Saber. Well, maybe not all." He grinned. "Someone coming from ancient Rome or Greece could probably teach anyone today a thing or two about debauchery."

"I have no wish to talk of this any further. Let your Master sleep."

Arturia knew they would be going against powerful enemies tonight—worrying about inane matters wouldn't do. Maybe later, after the War would be over.

The future was frightening. For most people dying in battle would probably be terrifying, but it didn't particularly bother Saber. No, it was the chance that they might succeed that scared her, although she'd never admit it. Without a country and a people to devote herself to she found herself adrift.

Tohsaka had mentioned that the time of putting the burden of ruling an entire nation on one person had passed: today citizens determined their own fate by electing representatives. The Grail had given her a primer on the modern world, of course, but it was hardly sufficient. Tohsaka held much knowledge and was willing to share.

Humanity had become stronger during the last few centuries. During her time, most of the people under her protection were uneducated peasants. Their culture, songs, and little rituals made them endearing, but they couldn't be depended upon to make any sort of an informed decision. And while many people these days didn't make good choices, it wasn't because they didn't have access to information or were oppressed. Man was free and was slowly growing up.

She shrugged off the heavy thoughts and resumed her watch.

###

"Master? Is it just me or does the city seem kind of empty? And why is everyone walking in groups?"

Fuyuki was by no means a metropolis, but Lancer and Bazett barely encountered any people as they made their way toward the Ryuudou Temple.

"Do you remember Tohsaka talking about Caster or somebody else gathering Mana for the War from citizens?" asked Bazett. "Well, the Church or the government—who knows—have decided to blame people ending up in the ER on gas leaks. According to the news, dozens of people have been hospitalized already and there might be deaths."

Cú Chulainn shook his head, a shadow passing over his features. In this one moment, he didn't resemble a hound at all, but rather a man he had been long ago. The moment passed and he was himself again. "Well, if we kill Caster tonight, they'll be fine. How dull this age is! In my days, even peasants could fight."

"Now you are just being nostalgic. The people are just trying to survive and protect their families. And I know medieval Ireland wasn't a land full of Heroes like you."

They walked on in silence disturbed only by a rare car passing by. Lancer seemed troubled by something, and she was tempted to urge him to spit it out, but she had learned Cu Chulainn was rarely honest outside of combat. He certainly couldn't be pushed into it.

He said, "You said that I was exactly the Servant you wanted to get. No, that you wanted to get me for this War. Why? I'm sure you could get a Catalyst for someone more powerful." He paused before chuckling. "Hell, you should have got somebody more powerful to go against Gilgamesh. Why me?"

Fraga stopped. Lancer walked several steps ahead before stopping too.

"We are not tools, Lancer," she said, her face locked into a grim mask. "Many Enforcers don't agree with me on that, many Magi too. They would say things like 'we exist to destroy the darkness of this world' and 'reaching the Root is the only thing that matters'. I'm not them." Her expression softened and her voice turned gentle. "I chose to join the Association. Nobody made me do it. I chose to let go of the old grudges, and I chose to become an Enforcer. Not because of some debt, money, or because I wanted others to be afraid of me, but because this is the job I love and am really good at."

Lancer had recoiled at her attitude at first, but he regained his composure now. "Is there a point to your story, Master?"

"My point is that you've made the opposite choice."

"I don't—"

"Nobody forced you to become a tool, Lancer. And yet you swore to defend a doomed country, bound yourself by countless geas, sealed the fate of your son—" Lancer growled, his features sharpening into something only remotely human. Bazett soldiered on heedless. "But you have always done the right thing. Protected those who needed help, didn't accept favors, fought against the worst in human nature. And you got treachery and death as payment."

Lancer loosened up, put his hands behind his head, stretched, and started walking. Bazett followed. He didn't meet her eyes, instead deciding to look at the sky where the few stars visible in a city in Japan stubbornly shone through the polluted air.

He said, "Everyone has a sob story. I had a good life: loyal friends, beautiful women, legendary battles. A lot of battles."

Fraga also looked at the sky, wondering what he saw there. Perhaps it was a way to feel at home? She knew the stars had moved since his time, but it a non-astronomer wouldn't notice. Or perhaps he simply found the topic uncomfortable enough without meeting her eyes.

She asked, "Would you like to work with me for the Association?"

"The Grail is corrupted, Master. There is no way for it to fulfill my wish for another chance in a way I'll be able to live with. I'm here to make things right, nothing more."

"Shirou thinks he'll be able to keep all the Servants here after the War by leaving the Grail in peace."

Lancer looked at her then. There was a spark in his eyes, and then they looked dead. "It is too dangerous," he said.

Bazett nodded. "Shirou is over-optimistic. He thinks powers that be will let that thing sit under the city without trying to use it for their own purposes or outright destroying it. I know Barthomeloi won't."

"Then why ask me if I want to stay?"

"Well, do you?"

Lancer rubbed his chin and grinned.

"That Rider chick is pretty hot."

"Pig," she said, smiling. "The Association has resources, and so does my family. I might not be able to support you myself, but it won't be a problem to supply you with energy at the Tower if you'd like to be my partner." She smiled. "Of course, we'd need to properly wrap up this mess first. Build up your portfolio."

Lancer looked at the ground and then—at the sky.

"A partner, huh… Never had one of those before. Come on, let's go kill us a wizard."

###

They advanced slowly.

Shirou's elder sister was a formidable Magus, and the forest around the castle was riddled with magical traps or alarms. Seeing as they were still miles away from the compound, Tohsaka couldn't even imagine how much money and time it took to set up blanket defenses like these.

"Shirou, why do you consider Illya a sister?" asked Tohsaka.

"She is Kiritsugu's daughter, and he is my father."

"Yes, I understand the dictionary logic, doofus." Rin jabbed him with a finger. "But you aren't relatives, not really. You don't share blood or experiences."

He said, "This tree smells of winter frost. Let's go around it."

As they kept walking, Shirou kept silent, and Tohsaka was beginning to think he wouldn't answer.

"I consider Fuji-nee a sister," he said at length. "And I don't consider you two sisters."

Tohsaka snorted, and Sakura chuckled. Shirou twitched.

"Wait, do you want me to?" he asked.

"No, senpai!" Sakura said, going red. "That would be weird."

"The two of us being in whatever this is—" Tohsaka started.

"Admit it, nee-san, you are in love with Emiya-senpai."

"—that cannot be summarized with a label is more than enough, thank you."

"Rider, do you see any enemies?" asked Sakura.

"I don't sense any enemies nearby, Master."

"Sense? Oh, right, sorry." Sakura looked chastened.

Shirou nodded. "It's good you don't need your eyes to perceive enemies, Rider. Especially in this darkness or if someone tries to blind us. My field of vision is barely three hundred feet."

"Shirou? I can hardly see my shoes," said Tohsaka

"I am Reinforcing my eyes. I'll teach you later."

"No, you won't. At least not until we have a free month or two to do it right. I like my eyes where they are."

Shirou said, "We didn't account for traps and for how badly Bazett was hurt. It's already dark."

"Senpai?"

"We should prepare to meet Illya in the field, just in case."

Saber, who was walking nearby, shook her head. "This is their territory, Master. We might have already been detected."

A soft chuckle reached them from all sides simultaneously. An innocent sound reminding Sakura of Christmas bells and mountain streams.

"Just a moment, I'll be with you in a minute, Onii-san. I don't know how you survived, but it's very kind of you to come here yourself, so that I can finish the job."

"Shit!"

"My, what naughty words you use, Tohsaka-san. And I can't detect your Servant." The laughter repeated, louder this time. "Don't tell me you forgot it at home. Are all the people who grew up around here retards?"

Tohsaka's growl didn't match her gender or stature. Rider materialized near Sakura. "We have two minutes until they reach our position, Master. Berserker is carrying Illya."

Shirou passed a pre-Traced Avalon to Saber.

"Plan B then," he said.

"Senpai, I don't like plan B."

"Suck it up, Sakura, they are here," Rin said, fishing out four sword-shaped crystals out of her bag and held them between her fingers.

As they prepared, Berserker could be heard crashing through the forest. Her sister dropped into a combat stance and cast a simple barrier that would be able to shield them from shrapnel-based attacks. There was a metal clang and Rider stepped forward, chain-daggers appearing in her hands. The sound of a giant barreling through the branches stopped.

Illya walked onto the clearing beside the giant figure of Berserker. White vapor billowed from the mad Servant's nostrils, and his muscles were like mountains of taut wire.

"How much willpower must it take to keep something like this under control…" said Tohsaka.

Her whisper carried on a light breeze, and Illya responded with a derogatory smile. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Tohsaka-san. I might even burn your body instead of sending it back to my family as they requested. If you say something else." Even that mockery of a smile vanished. "Tell me how great I am compared to my worthless brother."

The corners of Tohsaka's lips rose, but her eyes remained cold.

"No problem, Illya-chan. _Gandr!_ "

The gems in her right hand shattered into glittering violet dust, and four volleyball-sized globes of darkness flew forward. At the same time, Rider launched herself at Berserker turning into a blur and throwing her left dagger at his chest. The giant batted the blade away lazily and stepped into the way of Tohsaka's spell. There was a sound of a loaded truck hitting a mountain, and four shockwaves rippled through the forest. None of the people in the clearing could afford to shield their ears with their hands against the thunderclap.

Heracles's second sword came for Riders neck, and she ducked.

 _"_ _Gandr!"_

Another four magic bullets flew toward Illya at great speed. Rider had ducked so low that her body was almost parallel to the ground. Before the giant could slash down, she launched a dagger at Illya between his legs. Berserker roared and kicked at the blade. The nail penetrated his calf. Rider evaded his leg, but then Beserker dropped his right monster sword, grabbed at the chain and dragged her to him. Medusa let go of the weapon, but her dodge had already been ruined.

 _"_ _Gandr!"_

"Saber, now!" commanded Shirou.

A few things happened simultaneously. Tohsaka launched yet another volley of C-level spells at Illya, and Saber finally moved. Berserker lurched to rush the Servant, but Rin's spells came slightly at a different angle every time, and he had to protect his Master. The giant roared, shaking the trees, but he was rooted just for a moment. There was a slight explosion of Mana and Shirou put another gem into Tohsaka's bag. He then got barreled from behind.

Tohsaka barely glimpsed the semi-transparent five-foot crystal construct she blasted it to pieces with a curse. The pause, however, was something they could scarcely afford.

Shirou was face-down on the ground, blood oozing from his back and an unfamiliar greatsword in his right hand; Berserker was rushing them again; Illya was chanting something in German. Sakura thrust her palm forward.

 _"_ _Drain!"_

It was a laughably short Mantra for a very basic Mystery, but Berserker wasn't currently blocking his Master from where she stood. Heracles reflexively dashed to shield Illya, but her spell wasn't a projectile, instead it was Origin-based and relied in no small part on her housing the Corrupted Grail.

Sakura's eyes flashed red, and Illya faltered for a moment, looking into them in surprise.

 ** _"_** ** _EXCALIBUR!"_**

 _"_ _Shield me!"_

Tohsaka would always remember her first time seeing the legendary sword in action. Saber was at full strength, Avalon was strapped to her waist, and Shirou had put everything into that Summoning.

As Arturia Pendragon swung Excalibur down, an explosion of displaced air overpowered her battle shout. A cone of golden light rushed out of the sword lightning-fast, blinding everyone around the strike, uprooting trees and turning them into black shadows against the golden backdrop that quickly vanished, disintegrated by the merciless light.

There was some muffled sound—someone shouting something. It was impossible to tell.

Another explosion shook the earth, this time—brilliant white.

Everything was still.

###

"Did you sense that, Master? Was that Saber?"

"Yes, very impressive. Let's get back to not dying."

Bazett was fighting a very polite man who had introduced himself as Souichirou Kuzuki. An embodiment of chivalry. If you could look past the fact that he was trying to murder her.

 _Bugger bloody Japan and its sodding ninjas!_

Assassin was nowhere to be seen, which was a good thing. The bad thing was that they had found a very angry-looking Caster at the top of the stairs to the temple along with a lot of unconscious monks who had been drained of their energy to near-death.

And then there was this guy.

He moved against her again, leading with a left kick and then immediately flowing into an uppercut that threatened to remove her head. She evaded the first hit without trouble and barely blocked in time to stop the second one from turning her skull into a brain-bone cocktail. His style was strange, snake-like. Attacks came from unexpected angles, and it really messed with her ingrained reflexes. Good that she wasn't some dojo-raised martial arts theoretic, but it was still difficult to adapt to. And she couldn't overpower him using her Runes, because Caster had Reinforced the man's body to the density of steel. Each punch felt like getting hit by an tank shot.

"Can't we talk?"

Great, she was offering to negotiate with serial murderers. She glanced in Lancer's direction. Her Servant was running atop the roofs of the Temple buildings at mind-boggling speed and dodging the barrage of pinkish energy balls that Caster fired at him with the speed and power of a machine gun bred with artillery.

"Ha -ha-ha! Dance for me, little man! Dance!"

On the other hand, talking their way out of this mess might not be so bad. Their job was only to distract after all.

"Hey, man! I guess you lacked excitement in your life, but surely you could do better than—" Lancer disemboweled some ten-foot snake-monster Caster had summoned. "Her!"

Her Servant gestured in Caster's direction and continued running, vaulting, dashing, and rolling. He sounded like he was having the time of his life—a sentiment Bazett didn't share.

"You dare mock me! Die!"

Caster launched a gout of flame at her Servant which he avoided only by jumping behind a Temple building that immediately caught on fire.

"Hey, there might be people in there, lady! Didn't they offer you hospitality?"

"I don't care! Burn, worm!"

Bazett would have groaned, but she was too busy making sure the enemy Master didn't back her into a corner and make her into a shish-kebab with his super-Reinforced fists and feet.

"Lancer, you aren't helping!"

"Caster, please put out the fire," said her opponent.

His Servant hesitated for a moment before answering with glee.

"With pleasure!"

Incomprehensible Divine Words were uttered. A brief Aria, almost laughable by today's standards. From her experience in this fight Bazett surmised it was roughly equal to today's eight-verse Aria and was maybe B-rank. A blizzard hit the building with blocks of ice the size of her head going nearly supersonic. Dodging and deflecting them, Lancer resembled a gazelle who had done far too much meth, armed itself with a gold club, and took up acrobatics.

"You are so cold, my love. Isn't my love enough to warm you up?" Cú Chulainn kept goading his opponent.

Caster roared and called down lightning.

Bazett had no idea in hell what her Servant was trying to accomplish. Yes, enraging your enemy until they made a mistake was a sound strategy under normal circumstances. His enemy, however, hung a hundred feet in the air and bombarded him with the ferocity of a military helicopter squadron. All the goading in the world could hardly create an exploitable opening.

Then it hit her. Lancer was expecting her to beat Caster's Master.

 _Well, shit._

Souichirou had just made a flip in the air and landed heel-first where she'd been standing moments before. Stone flew everywhere and a perfectly round two-foot crater was created.

 _Remarkably homogenous rock. Wait, wrong thoughts, wrong thoughts!_

She dodged back two times in rapid succession and saved her ribcage and the part of her face she rather liked. Whatever part of her was about to be destroyed always became her favorite part.

Then Bazett felt a chill with her back and cursed. She had backed into a pile of ice Caster had made half a minute ago with her miniature 'North Canada in winter' spell.

 _Situational awareness. I knew I was missing something in my training._

She dodged a punch that sent a twenty-pound chunk of frozen water into the temple wall fifty feet away.

"Lancer! _Use your Phantasm now!_ "

Her hand burned as a Command Spell disappeared from it.

 ** _"_** ** _Gae Bolg!"_**

Normally activating a Phantasm took a while, but Command Spells circumvented the normal rules. She saw Lancer crouch and throw his spear in one fraction-of-a-second movement.

The usual building-up of dread was completely bypassed, and the air was instantly filled with red Mana reeking of murderous intent as the demonic spear hurtled towards Caster. Souichirou stopped his attack; he turned as if he was going to run to where his Servant hovered and then just stood motionless. She was tempted to take a cheap shot, but the man had the kind of reflexes that would work even if he were brain-dead.

The spear broke the sound barrier, thundered through the air and reached Caster. Any second now the insane bitch would be dead and their job would be done.

Caster disappeared.

Bazett was contemplating running the hell away, but then the spear turned sharply in the air and flew to the other side of the temple. Bazett looked up and, sure enough, there was Caster hovering. She raised some sort of barrier which couldn't even slow down the projectile. She teleported to the other side of the temple just as she was about to be nailed right through. Gae Bolg turned around and flew toward its target again.

Lancer jumped down from the roof and walked toward them.

"Hey, boss, other creepy Master guy? Want to wager how long she can keep it up?"

"Aren't you going to kill me?" asked Souichirou.

"Nah, I can always do it, but what would be the point? Her heart is already pierced, let's see how long she can hold out."

Chapter end notes

I love how your brain can go, 'Hey, know what you are missing in life? Feeling for two weeks like you are the absolute bottom of a nuclear disposal facility under the sewers of humanity. You'll love it!' Thankfully, I'm back and I'm productive again.

In the time between updates I've been working on setting up a Facebook page and my second personal site. Although the first one was in Russian, so I might just call it a site—links in the profile will be updated as I launch stuff. The synopsis and the start of my upcoming original novel are done too, so that's something.

Also, Lancer is here! I love his character. He is snarky, powerful, and hilariously unlucky in his romantic advances on all the women surrounding him. He also got dealt a really shitty hand both in life and in the original novel, so writing a happier story for him and exploiting the hell out of his Phantasm was fun. Hope you like it. The Nasuverse wiki, which I worship, states that Lancer was nerfed by a Command Spell in the VN because Kotomine didn't care a damn about winning, so he is more powerful in my story.

I'm starting to do weekly fic recommendations on Facebook (link is somewhere in the profile). You can check it out if you want to, although I have to warn you that my taste is pretty vanilla.

If you like this story, please consider letting favoriting it and writing reviews. Winter is coming and I could use the warmth inside.

Next update will be in around two weeks to make up for the lost time.

Stay shiny.

###

I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed the last Chapter for the kind words. It's great that most of you consider the relationships between characters realistic.

Personal replies:

Griphon212 (about people too eagerly believing the Grail is corrupted): Well, the evidence that something is up is certainly there by the start of the war (anti-heroes, too-brief pause between Wars, and so on). Before War only Shirou's family and friends are completely convinced and of those Dietrich and Kiritsugu have enough experience and circumstantial evidence; Sakura would believe anything coming from Shirou; Tohsaka knows neither Shirou nor Sakura would lie to her about something like this by the point the information is revealed to her. I think it's fine.

shika: 'Stay shiny' is a signature phrase of the fans of Firefly—Joss Wheadon's masterpiece space western series. If that definition appeals to you at all, I recommend you check it out. It's short (13 episodes before some idiots at Fox cancelled it) but brilliant.

EdwynX (about timeline inconsistency and Archer absorption): Thank you for pointing out the age thing—that was a typo. I know that Shirou putting Archer inside his Reality Marble is stretching the system a bit, but it's not world-breaking. There is precedent of living beings being sealed inside other living beings in canon (Chaos) although, of course, there is no precedent of a Servant getting stuck inside a Marble. I will, however, remind you that it is a separate world and that Shirou, for example, doesn't concentrate at all on maintaining the things in there and doesn't have access to their Mana. My assumption here is that as long as something is enough of a 'Sword' and as long as it can be processed by his mind without frying his brain (and a Command Spell helped with that), it's possible to place anything in Shirou's Marble, no matter the power level or complexity. Plus, it should be cool when I'll roll the really big guns out.


	9. King's Duty

Author's Intro

Merry Christmas, everyone! Thank you for all the reviews and favorites. You make me really nervous regarding the stuff I'm planning to write next (what if no one likes it?), and that's a good thing.

I apologize for being late with an update. I had a bit of a writing problem; not so much writer's block as a building desire to pour more and more romance into this story until Shirou would end up living in a country house guarded by killer unicorns. He would of course be constantly surrounded by his harem and all kinds of cuddly fluff. It took some time to siphon this compulsion off into a House M.D. House/Cameron fic, but now we are again safe from the horrors of unstoppable cuteness. Full notes on writer's block, plans, and stuff at the end of the chapter.

I suppose an alternate kick-ass version of me might own the rights to the Nasuverse in a parallel dimension. Here, I own nothing and I'm not making any money from this whatsoever.

Fonts:

Thoughts:

 _If only I were a tree. A singing, bloodthirsty tree…_

Speech:

"Tohsaka, I don't know where your bra is. Stop bothering me."

Normal spells:

 _"Gandr!"_

Overpowered spells:

 ** _"Unlimited Bladeworks!"_**

King's Duty

"That can't be right," Barthomeloi said.

She peered over the notes on her table one more time while Waver patiently stood nearby and sometimes pointed to a particularly disturbing place in the report. She took a moment to glance away from the papers both to take a measure of the man and to make him sweat a little. Lord El-Melloi II had been an idealistic airhead in his youth if the few rumors she remembered were anything to go by. Whatever had happened to him in Japan changed him, and she could admit to herself she had been intrigued by the Holy Grail War after his return. However, as Vice-Director she had other things to occupy her attention: research oversight, Sealing of rogue Magi, and managing the curriculum at the Clock Tower. But as she went through the materials Waver had given her, she regretted not having the time to properly investigate this years ago.

"Why haven't you brought this to my attention before?"

She tried to keep the accusation out of her voice, but Lorelei was intimidating by nature. Something to do with her ability to blow up a fairly large building with a basic spell, she suspected. Normally, people flinched when she spoke and tried to get the hell away as soon as they could. Waver didn't even blink.

"I didn't think it necessary, Vice Director," he said.

"Explain," she commanded, eyeing him with suspicion.

The man shrugged, playing with an end of the ridiculously long red scarf he wore over his black suit.

"The Grail can be conclusively examined only when the War is in progress. I didn't want my findings to be declared baseless, which is why I didn't go to you. Me and another Magus from the previous War took measures to make sure it would be taken care of."

She stared at him with disbelief, but El-Melloi just looked at her with an infuriatingly calm expression. She wasn't accustomed to people showing such a complete disregard for her position and power.

"Taken care of," she parroted him, her voice dangerously quiet. "Lord El-Melloi, why do you think the Association exists?"

"To make sure the Magi don't all kill each other and the public doesn't wipe us out."

He didn't hesitate, and she had to stop herself from showing surprise on her face. After working as the Vice Director for as long as she had, Lorelei knew for sure that absurdly many of their kind believed in some stupid notions of cooperation and comradery instead of survival. She peered at him.

"That's not all that you believe," she said. This time, she didn't keep disdain and accusation from sipping into her tone.

"I believe in too many things to list them now," he said, his air light. "The only thing important is that I know that Association has no reason to get itself involved more. We have an Enforcer as a Master—one of the best—and an observer."

"Curious how you forget to mention that we, in fact, had two observers until one of them mysteriously disappeared."

"Yes, mysterious."

"I don't know, maybe the severed head the other observer was able to recover from the river is some kind of a clue?"

"Perhaps— what?"

El-Melloi didn't quite yelp, but she enjoyed seeing his unflappable façade crumble like a sand castle in a thunderstorm. She said, "Didn't know that, did you, even with your network of informants? Yes, we found her. She is dead. More importantly, she is an Einzbern, and I have to announce her death today evening or risk… displeasing the Einzberns."

"They are one of our largest donors," he said quietly, staring at the floor.

"That they are. They also neck-deep in this." She gestured at the reports. "And you are too."

She stood up from the table and walked toward him, picking her riding crop Focus on the way. He didn't back away which she had to give him credit for. As they stared at each other, Mana started swirling around her.

"I blame you, El-Melloi. You had the information to prevent this political clusterfuck, and you didn't. Before our second observer had to flee Japan, he saw a man with a golden hair and red eyes visit one of the Magus households in the region. Sounds familiar?" His silence was all she needed for an answer. "You knew. You knew everything and decided to stay silent."

"Not everything," he breathed out. "But enough, yes."

"He was also able to take a peek at the Greater Grail shortly after the ritual started. Would you guess what he found?"

This time it wasn't a rhetorical question.

"Corrupted energies," he said.

"Aren't you a smart one, El-Melloi. You seem to have all the answers. Final question: would you like the Association to help you?" Seeing his raised brow, she added, "Help you not get killed by other Magi—me, that is—and help us all avoid a witch hunt by getting rid of the fucking thing threatening to blow up half of Japan."

"What about the Masters? They are in it for a wish, and the ritual is officially sanctioned by both us and the Church."

"If they get in your way, we'll kill them. You and an Enforcer team leave in one hour."

###

Rain pelleted his skin, pierced it, lodged itself inside. He was blind and deaf, and only in his upper body some sensation remained, but it was enough to feel the rain. He tried to take a deep breath to clear his head and the dim the kaleidoscope before his eyes and immediately found his nostrils filled with dust.

Rain stopped and he could feel his legs again. Then he remembered his name.

Shirou made a movement to rise but found someone holding him down. A dainty hand wrapped in steel. Saber.

"Shirou—"

Her voice drew closer as the ringing in his ears subsided.

"Shirou, can—"

He could make out a white blob, somewhat lighter than the slowly fading luminescent shapes filling his vision.

"Shirou, can you hear me? Say something."

Why did Saber sound so worried? Did something happen to one of the girls?

"Is everyone okay?" he asked.

Another shape swam into view, white framed with black.

"Are we okay? Shirou, you idiot! Rider didn't see you when she came in; a freaking tree exploded into you!"

"You sound worried, Tohsaka." The shapes were growing blurry, and getting to focus was growing more difficult. "Calm down. I have this headache…"

"Move, nee-san. We need to get the bigger wood chips out of him and hope Avalon pushes the rest out."

"Nii-san, you look like a porcupine," said an unfamiliar voice.

"Shut up, Einzbern. I'm this close to sending your mummified head to your relatives for Christmas."

"Uh-oh, watch out, Tohsaka is angry," said Shirou.

Then he chuckled. It hurt but only a bit.

"What the hell did you give him, Sakura?" Exasperation in Tohsaka's voice started to bleed off, and weariness came to take its place.

"Morphine," said Sakura.

"There are two armed women in maid uniforms approaching from the Einzbern Castle," said Rider.

"Get rid of them."

"I don't follow your orders, Tohsaka-san. Master?"

Black started to dance at the corners of Shirou's vision. He heard Illya's voice. She didn't sound chipper for once; more like her actual age, really. "I'll call them off before heading to the Overseer for protection."

Tohsaka laughed at that, but Shirou drifted off before he could hear what she told his sister.

###

"So, that happened," said Bazett.

"Yep," said Lancer not looking up from cleaning his spear with an oiled cloth.

A set of sharpening stones was merrily emitting bubbles in a nearby saucepan.

"Lancer, it's a Noble Phantasm," she said. "It doesn't get dull."

He scoffed.

"I get it's important to you, but an hour?"

"I've got stamina."

"Uh-huh."

Then he looked up at her with his blood-red eyes and said, "Master, you need to choose a side we'll stick with."

After defeating Caster the two of them made their way to the caverns beneath the Temple. The enemy Master turned out to be a human with no mystical ability whatsoever. His apparent training notwithstanding, he didn't pose a real danger to them anymore. They let him go. This had been when Lancer decided to borrow some equipment from the monks and do some maintenance on his Noble Phantasm.

###

Illya couldn't decide what she felt. Berserker had been her ever present companion for so long that walking to her castle without him was disconcerting. It was like a part of her had been ripped out and incinerated. The strong, confident part.

Even after losing, she still maintained perfect composure—a testament to Einzbern upbringing. Losing in the War and not dying was one possibility she hadn't anticipated. Winning and bringing greatness to her family—sure. Getting blindsided and dying was less likely, but okay. Being taken captive by her enemies who insisted they were trying to help her? Now that was just stupid.

"Here we are," she said.

Illya had ordered her maids away. They had been given to her for the War, so she had no right to keep them. To be honest with herself, she had no idea why she was currently leading the other Masters and Servants up the stairs, because the castle wasn't hers either. She must have been too tired to think clearly, she supposed.

After Berserker's death, his energy had poured into her, and even if the Lesser Grail wasn't capable of accessing the energy of dead Servants, the transfer still took its toll on the vessel.

###

"Rin, look at this," Sakura said.

When Tohsaka's sister managed to speak to her directly without blushing, stuttering, or calling her 'Tohsaka-senpai', it always meant trouble. She loved Sakura, but the girl gave a new meaning to the word 'insecurity'. And 'guilt', for that matter. From what she knew, it was typical of abuse victims. Rin steered her thoughts from that direction, instead focusing on what could be important enough to punch through the blanket of shyness that always hindered Sakura. She took the phone from her sister and immediately saw the problem.

"Well, fuck."

Sakura nodded. It was a news report from Fuyuki. While they have been heading toward the Einzbern's castle, a series of explosions shook the city, destroying several seemingly random buildings. Luckily no one had been at the first two, but there were more than a hundred confirmed deaths at the third one, which was a hotel. The author of the breaking news article wrote that they had been lucky it wasn't tourist season right now. She knew luck had nothing to do with the situation, because the other two buildings that got blown up were the Emiya and Tohsaka residences. Of course, gas explosions were blamed.

Tohsaka said, "Damn it, and I just repaired the living room. Couldn't they destroy the place before that?"

"Erm… Nee-san, I think you are missing the bigger picture."

"At least I have insurance…"

Saber walked up to them from where she had laid down Shirou. "What is going on? Are we in danger?" she asked.

Tohsaka said, "Well, it appears like someone has finally started taking us seriously." After glancing at Saber's uncomprehending face, she continued. "Somebody is cutting potential escape routes: my house just blew up, Emiya residence followed, and the hotel we stayed in went up in flames along with a hundred people in it."

Saber's face darkened, but the Servant remained quiet, which Tohsaka was grateful for. They needed to stay calm, and Saber's moral code didn't help when innocents got hurt.

"There is a possibility that Lancer and Bazett didn't distract Caster long enough," said Saber.

Tohsaka frowned before shaking her head. "It doesn't add up. Shirou told me about Bazett—the woman is insufferable, but she has honor. And that Lancer wouldn't lose easily to a Magus."

"Maybe Illya is the one responsible, sister?" asked Sakura. "We should wake her up."

Tohsaka looked at the ornate chair where Illya was napping at the moment, snuggling to a plush bunny. She told herself it was nothing but a ploy to keep them from killing her, but this didn't change the fact that the girl was unashamedly adorable. She had tried to kill them a few hours back, and still Tohsaka wanted to cuddle the kid and wipe the expression of discomfort from her face.

 _Ugh, cuteness._

###

The worst part of the Holy Grail War, Bazett decided, was not the constant risk of death at the hands of beings infinitely more powerful than herself. No, the worst part was not being able to sleep properly for days. Contrary to popular belief, Sealing Designation Enforcers weren't super-spies capable of breaking into heavily warded castles with nothing but a toothbrush, a roll of adhesive tape, and a stuffed goat. They were soldiers, and her job usually included lying in wait for hours until a target exited their Workshop. Then she would move in, knock the enemy out, and drag them to her superiors.

Which was why on a typical working day she would have plenty opportunities to get a nap. It was difficult to explain to non-Enforcers how one could chill in the middle of a massacred village while waiting for the killer to come back for the victims' organs, but that didn't change the fact that humans could get used to anything, including the constant feeling of impending doom. On this job, however, she didn't deal so much with impending doom as with things trying to kill her at any moment, interspersed with planning and recovery from wounds. Even Bazett wasn't hardcore enough to sleep while running. And this, she felt, justified her current irritability.

Lancer stood protectively in front of her, shielding Bazett from the hundred blades glinting in the morning light behind a smirking man in golden armor.

"Behold the visage of your King, mongrels!"

Bazett groaned. After running from this asshole for days she couldn't bring herself to care anymore.

"A bath," she said.

An elegant golden brow rising was the only sign of the Archer's surprise.

"A bath," she repeated, enunciating the word carefully just in case the King of Heroes was hard of hearing. Gilgamesh frowned in annoyance and her Servant turned back to look at her.

"Master, are you alright?" asked Lancer.

"What the hell are you yapping, bitch?" asked Gilgamesh.

She huffed. Men. They knew nothing of priorities. "You caught us. Deceived us by attacking during the day. Congratulations."

Some poor middle-aged man stumbled into the dirty alley where the confrontation was taking place.

"Holy Mary—" he managed to say before a four-foot-long spear pierced him through the heart.

Gilgamesh barely twitched, still staring at her with calculating red eyes. She shuddered, both from the casual air with which he had just murdered an innocent man and the expression the King of Heroes wore. The kind of look that gave her the impression that the only reason he didn't violate her right then and there was because he didn't find the prospect enticing or interesting enough.

Bazett pressed on. "Do you know how long I've gone without a proper shower? Three days. A bath? A week. We just got rid of Caster, we were going back to the hotel where I was going to finally wash off the sweat and the filth, maybe bang Lancer, and sleep the sleep of the deeply satisfied."

The other golden brow joined its sibling in ascending into the King's hairline, and Lancer was now looking at her as if she might jump him right there.

"Master, I had no idea you felt that way." He managed a lecherous grin, finally starting to play along.

"Lancer, don't look at me like that. I have standards. Which include brushing teeth before sex and not doing it in dank alleys. It's insanitary." She jabbed a finger at the Golden King. "And you just had to show up now. Couldn't you wait for an hour or two?" She sighed, letting all of her exhaustion and annoyance into the sound and moved to go past Lancer, but he stood in her way. "Lancer, let me through."

"Master, you'll die."

She snorted and said, "Lancer, look around you. We are in a dingy alley, and everything is filled with swords, and axes, and— Does that baton look suspiciously phallic, or is it just me?"

Gilgamesh looked decidedly amused now, and she knew she had him.

"Look here, big shot. Your Majesty. Whatever. Could you adjust what you had planned for us to include a bath? Please? I'm so tired of this fucking war, I don't care what happens to me anymore. I just want a shower and a bed. In that order."

The king laughed. It was a surprisingly pure sound, like an innocent child in a man's body having far too much fun. "Oh, I like you, mortal. If only we had more time. Dismiss the spear, guard dog, and you will be honored guests. Risk my wrath, and you will be destroyed. And I might just recall how I trained my female slaves: it's been far too long since I broke and remade a woman."

Cu Chulainn looked at her for confirmation, and she nodded. The spear was gone, and Gilgamesh's grin turned far less predatory. He waved a hand and the blades disappeared. "Have him turn into spirit form, woman. It's a long walk, and I'd rather do it without armor."

The Golden King switched into a white t-shirt and jeans, and they left the alley for more populated parts.

###

Shirou didn't dream like normal people did. At least, not since the fire, and the fire was the start of his life. A normal person would fast-forward through the day, pull up images from their subconscious, or simply have psychedelic trips down to Wonderland. And then they would forget most of it.

Shirou had only two dreams: one for good days and one for bad, and he never forgot them in the morning. The bad one was a memory. The fire, licking at the buildings; the smoke, clawing at his lungs; the people, screaming for help. Him, walking in the middle of it all, becoming more with every step as pieces of him were stripped away. The good dream wasn't a dream at all, because you weren't supposed to be able to pull Mysteries out of your dreams. It was his Reality Marble that had started as a fog-filled state of half-wakefulness in the hospital all those years ago, and in which he now stood on the hill of swords. He hadn't had an opportunity to meditate and come here since Archer joined him, but exhaustion coupled with what felt like being thrown into a tree did the job.

 _Maybe I should just ask Tohsaka to hit me on the head next time I need to get here._

Things had changed: his Marble felt complete. There was no more fog to be seen anywhere. The sky was quiet, the forge and its anvils twirled slowly as if he hadn't just been knocked out by one of the most powerful Phantasms in existence. Rider had promised she would do her best to keep Illya alive, but Bellerophon's magnificence and speed didn't seem like it had a non-lethal mode.

Shirou looked around him. The hill had been empty before, housing only Avalon. Excalibur and Caliburn joined it after Saber had been summoned, completing the trio. The three phantasms were still in their spots, but two more blades were now also plunged into earth at the top of the field. Kanshou and Byakuya were unremarkable in power: much weaker than hundreds of weapons that now littered the land all around him. Apparently, even his Marble was more sentimental than him.

Shirou started walking down the hill. He had a conversation to get to, and there was only one person to talk to in the whole world. Finding Archer was easy. Nothing could hide from him here.

"Is that an igloo?" he asked his alternative-self after getting to him.

The man just shrugged and continued carving a giant block of ice out of a glacier. They were in the frozen quarter of the marble.

"Sakura was always home," said Archer, faintest trace of a smile fleeting across his face. "Fitting that her quarter is the only one that has anything to build with. Saber's though—now that's so like her—is just an endless field of emerald glass with a rare holy weapon stuck in it, surrounded by broken blades."

He had finished hacking at ice and was now carrying the five-hundred-pound chunk of it to where he was doing his best to duplicate the architectural know-how of far North.

Shirou scratched the back of his head and said, "I figured it was something like that."

"How long did it take you to get it?" Archer asked, Tracing a demonic dagger and starting to do some fine work on the ice to get rid of the gaps.

The younger Faker was sure he looked sheepish. Archer did make him feel a bit like a kid he had never been. Shirou said, "I understood when I saw you appear here. It was pretty obvious that quarter was yours. What I want to know is if it was waiting for you, or could somebody else take it?"

Archer shook his head. He had just hewn out an eight-foot-tall square block, placed it in front of his improvised house, and started carving. "I'd guess that the person needs to not think of themselves as human to end up solidifying a part of your Marble. Saber has been a part of you since you were born, and me, well, I am you."

Shirou didn't like what this implied. He had considered Sakura and Tohsaka his anchors, somebody normal to latch on to and give him purpose. The fact that some aspect of them ended up here meant they were like him. Broken.

"You look confused, kid," said Archer. "Something wrong? More than the usual 'the world is out to kill us', that is."

"Nothing," Shirou said. "Did you think of a way to get out?"

"No, but I've found a way to go deeper in. Ironically enough, I can summon my Reality Marble inside of your Reality Marble. I can't wait until you are strong enough to summon your Marble to check if you can call your Marble inside my Marble existing inside your Marble."

"I think the universe might break," Shirou said.

He had learned from a very early stage that his ability was something that defied the ordinary laws of conservation of Mana. He could create Mysteries more powerful than what he put into them, but trying to summon Marbles inside Marbles inside Marbles was beyond even his very loose definition of acceptable risks during Mystic experiments.

Archer chuckled and said, "Maybe. But it's really boring, being stuck here without cable and Internet, and you can't just Trace me, because I'm not literally a blade. Your Circuits are much stronger than mine were at your age, but the amount of Mana you'll need to channel might tear you apart."

"Might?" he asked. It was good to have options, after all, and Archer was ridiculously powerful.

"I suppose you could survive the process—just barely—and Avalon could heal your Circuits after a while. But you can't afford being out of commission for a few months, can you? Look, just have someone engrave a mystery novel on a giant sword or something. I'm dying of boredom here."

Everything suddenly wobbled and darkness crept into the corners of his vision.

"Looks like they are trying to wake you up," Archer said.

"They can wait," said Shirou, frowning at the wavering sky. "Teach me your Aria."

###

"Isn't it past your bedtime, Einzbern? Stop bothering Shirou and go away."

"No," his sister said, and he could imagine the pout clearly even with his eyes closed. "We need onii-san now. Not when he's had his nap—now."

Groggily, Shirou woke up and was greeted with two pairs of eyes: Sakura's violet ones and Illya's red. Both had plenty of worry in them, although in Illya's case it was mixed with irritation. She looked adorable.

"Hi, sister," he said, smiling broadly.

Illya recoiled from him as if he had just sprouted blades from him skin. He didn't, did he?

"What is wrong with him?" Kirtsugu's eldest asked, glaring at Tohsaka for some reason. "Shirou, we need to leave the castle now, as I've been telling everyone for the last thirty minutes. Maybe you can talk some sense into your harem."

Tohsaka raised an eyebrow at Illya, and Einzbern huffed. "As if it isn't obvious you three are an item. A sick, perverted item."

Tohsaka shook her head, getting closer to Shirou to look him over. She said, "Well, your wounds are almost gone. I haven't been able to contact Bazett-san after getting her message that the Caster was dead. We need to assume that Gilgamesh is finally making his move."

Shirou looked from his temperamental lover to his petulant sister. He needed Dietrich or Waver to come back, because the number of women around him wasn't conductive to him staying alive.

He replied, "Reasonable. What is the problem?"

Tohsaka said, "Look, Einzbern, I understand that you want to preserve the family castle and everything, but you really shouldn't bother. This place has wards, it was built to be defendable, and after this War we are making sure there will be no more Holy Grail Wars, so your clan won't need this place anymore." She frowned and added, "Really, we are doing you a favor. The upkeep on a building like this must be enormous."

"We aren't beggars, Tohsaka-san," Illya answered with a sneer. "Not like we need to throw jewels at our enemies to defeat them."

"Oh, please," Tohsaka said with a snort. "You get lucky with your rent-a-Homunculus business, and now you have the gall to come here, to my city, and insult me?"

"Your city? Your family is down to only you, Tohsaka-san. Your house is gone. Fuyuki—yours? How will you protect it without all your pretty baubles?"

Shirou reached out and pinched Illya's cheek. It worked in those anime thingies he'd been watching to build up his social skills.

"Ow-ow-ow-ow!"

"Now, Illya, be nice," he said. "Tohsaka is like family to me—"

"Not you too, Shirou!" Tohsaka cried out. "Dietrich has been at it for ages, calling all of us his children. Do you have any idea how weird it sounds with us being—"

"Sisters aren't the only kind of family a man can have," he said, looking pointedly from Rin to Sakura and back.

"Well, I'm definitely not your mum, so—"

"Nee-san, not all family is related by blood. Some we choose," Sakura said.

Shirou nodded, ignored the fact that Tohsaka went red as a lava font, and turned to Illya. "That accounts for you too, Illya. You are a different kind of family from them—thank the Root—but you are one nonetheless. So try to get along." He finally got up from the floor and scanned the room for Saber. She was sitting in a corner, traditional Japanese style, so still that he hadn't noticed her. "Saber," he called, and she snapped open her eyes, immediately alert. "I need you to go through the castle. Find a large hall on the top floor with good ceiling supports and a couple adjacent rooms with lots of furniture."

"Master?"

Shirou elaborated, "If what Waver and Kiritsugu told me of the last war is true, Gilgamesh can easily overwhelm us on open ground. But he tends to just stand in place and throw his weapons at his enemies until they are dead. I'm willing to bet he won't stoop to pushing us into a location more favorable for him."

"It is a sound plan." Saber nodded. "Cover should not benefit him, but it might be useful for us. And his Gate also needs space."

Shirou said. "Take Illya with you. She knows the Castle. Later we'll drag mattresses to that room and rest until they come."

His sister opened her mouth, as if to protest, but then looked at Saber and her face flowed into a devious smile. She and his Servant left shortly after.

Tohsaka huffed and plopped onto the bed in the room. "Damn. Does that girl have no priorities? I swear she is planning to gossip Saber's head off."

Shirou actually cracked a smile at that and said, "I'd like to see her try. Tohsaka, how many gems do you have?"

"Not enough."

" _Trace on._ " A dagger, hewn out of a single piece of crystal appeared in his hand, sparkling with Mana. "I may be able to help you. Let's go through Archer's inventory of magical jeweled weapons and see what you can use."

Sakura seemed to hesitate for a second before asking, "Erm, senpai? Does Archer-san see whatever you are doing now?" She blushed furiously for some reason.

"As far as I can tell, no. He is stuck inside the Marble, and it's a separate world."

"Oh, good."

Was it just him or did Sakura seem a little put out?

"Why?" he asked.

It was Tohsaka that answered, "Because we wouldn't ever have sex with you ever again knowing that old pervert was watching. Right, Sakura?"

The blush turned into what looked like an inferno just below the skin.

"Eh? Yes! Yes, of course, nee-san! Never." Sakura looked away and giggled.

 _What the hell was that about?_

For the sake of his sanity, Shirou decided to ignore what had just happened and Traced five weapons made entirely out of jewels for Tohsaka. Better men than him spent their lives trying to figure women out. In his admittedly limited experience, as long as the girl didn't seem upset or forcibly cheerful, it was best not to try and guess what was going in her head. He had trouble even with males in that regard, and women were a hundred times worse.

###

They found an appropriate hall, rested, heard the wards being breached, and then the fight started. Saber got immediately drawn off into an adjoining room and was desperately trying to rejoin her Master without getting her head lopped off. It wasn't going well.

She ducked under her opponent's swipe barely managing to keep her bun. The man's Servant Class was a joke, because that samurai had no business being an Assassin. The fact that his weapon was an oversized katana didn't radiate a ninja vibe either. Instead she had found her match as a swordsman in him, and he just wouldn't let her gain enough distance to use any of her abilities. Even releasing Invisible Air took a fraction of a second, and she knew that in that fraction she would be decapitated.

"You fight well, Saber, but I sense hesitance in your blade," he said. "A knight's sword is only as true as their loyalty, I heard. What are you loyal to?"

Western style of swordplay clashed against the Eastern. Saber feinted to the right with a diagonal slash and then with a twist of her wrist turned the movement into a sharp lunge to her opponent's chest, but Assassin didn't by it. He flowed onto his back leg without moving his legs, twisted his torso and turned his ridiculous katana ever-so-slightly, deflecting the point of her blade where it cut only a few strands of his loose hair.

They were fighting in a small room to the side of the hall where the main battle was taking place. Saber was the most suited to countering Gilgamesh out of all of them, and the Golden King knew it. She was fast, her Invisible Air could be used to make an opening, her Excalibur could be used to overwhelm any defense, and Avalon could be used to block any large-scale attack. Against a man who seemed to rely on nothing but raw skill with the sword, all her advantages were useless. They had been fighting for three minutes when she realized why neither of them could wound the other. While Saber's style was focused on overwhelming offence, the Eastern swordsman was used to keeping his opponent at range and deflecting their strikes until he either found an opening or maneuvered them into a disadvantageous position.

 _Oh, what the hell._

Taking a page out of Archer's book, Saber overextended and delayed just a moment in recovering after his block, and her opponent exploited the weakness instantly. There was a woosh of air, and Saber felt the katana slash through the left side of her breastplate as he made a two-handed sweep. She took a step forward with her right leg, mirroring Assassin's footwork, evading the worst of the damage, her blade blurring in a stab at his shoulder. The clash lasted only a moment, and both of them sprang back.

There was a long shallow slash starting at her left collarbone, going through her left breast and ending just under her armpit. It hurt, and blood began pooling inside her armor, but Saber could already feel Avalon sealing the wound. She drew upon her connection to Shirou, and her breastplate repaired itself with a faint golden glow. Her sword had gone clean through Assassin's left biceps. Blood trickled down freely and showed no signs of stopping as he slightly readjusted his grip on the dai-katana.

She said, "There is no shame in yielding to a superior opponent, Assassin. You cannot beat me. I have regeneration, and you don't."

Using her body and healing to absorb the damage was reckless, but her Master had been rubbing off on her. Only fitting that she would adopt his methods to protect him. As strange as Saber found serving one person instead of an entire country, she was slowly getting used to it. There were much worse men than Emiya Shirou to follow.

"I've thought with wounds more dire than these," Assassin said, glancing toward the room where the fight was going on. "A surprising move from one such as you, but I won't fall for it again. Regrettably, I am here only to keep your attention while my lord wins his bottle."

Saber rooted herself, switching to a lower stance and a one-handed grip to keep her options open. On one hand, Assassin was wounded now. On the other hand, he had been getting better and better at predicting the exact reach of his invisible weapon. Somewhere behind her a series of explosions rang, and she could hear Shirou scream 'Duck!'.

"Unfortunately for my lord, while I do owe a debt to him for freeing me of servitude to that abominable woman, I am no slave. I will give you a real fight, Arturia of the Round Table."

She flinched at the use of her real name. Of course, Gilgamesh would tell his allies who she was.

Assassin continued, "Of course, since I already know your name, it would be rude for me to go on without introducing myself. Sasaki Kojirou. At your service, my lady."

He made the barest of bows, keeping his eyes on her all the time, while her brain went into overdrive. The Grail gave the Servants access to the information on the other legends existing in the Throne of Heroes, so she should have been able to instantly recognize her opponent upon hearing his name. She didn't.

She said, "You are lying. There is no hero by that name."

The man laughed. "The Grail spares attention only to full legends that can be summoned by ordinary Masters. The Throne is larger than you think, Saber," he said, readjusting his sword a little more. "I am no legend, just a rumor of a man who surpassed the gods through sheer skill. A shadow behind the throne, hidden from those who would sit upon it."

He dropped into a low stance, holding his katana parallel to the ground. His form didn't have any openings, despite the wound in his arm—he had compensated for it perfectly.

"Prepare yourself, Saber."

Despite how ridiculous his weapon looked and despite her being a master swordsman, Saber felt fear. Not a conscious fear, born of something processed by the mind, but a simple panic, brought on by survival instinct going into overdrive.

 _If I don't move, I will die._

 ** _"Tsubame Gaeshi."_**

###

"I don't know why you wanted to come, playwright. I can easily take care of these vermin myself, now that my queen is occupied."

Gilgamesh was supposed to be an embodiment of power, but Shirou was more inclined to consider him an embodiment of arrogance. Archer, at least, wielded his own egotism as a weapon, both against his own past and against his enemies. Gilgamesh was just a sneering bundle of conceit.

Shirou charged the circuits with Mana and saw Rider change the grip on her weapons. Sakura looked determined for once; Illya's eye was twitching; Tohsaka had the Bag with her.

"Kotomine. It was you who killed my father and drove my mother insane, wasn't it?" asked Tohsaka.

The priest looked at them with his empty eyes before an explosion of laughter shook his frame. "This is perfect. Moments from your death, and you ask me about old man Tokiomi. My teacher was just so boring. And your mom, living with you, doing nothing but caring for her daughters. Your family was a living Magi cliché, so I did you all a small favor. Reach the Root! Ha! It is here, by testing the humans—"

A blade thwonked into the stone by Kotomine's feet, sending a gray cloud of stone dust into the air and cutting off his speech.

"I grow bored with your prattle, housedog. Cease it, lest I cut out your tongue," ordered Gilgamesh.

 _Huh, so that's how it works_ , thought Shirou.

This could be problematic. Gilgamesh's summoning looked to be just a bit slower than his own Tracing, and there was just the barest hint of metal smell in the air when a blade got released, so it didn't look like the Golden King used much Mana for it. The number of swords Shirou could simultaneously Trace was limited by the number of his Circuits. From what Waver told him about the past war, Gilgamesh could fire and endless barrage from his Gate of Babylon.

The man in golden armor looked at him with his red eyes and smirked. "Broken dog, you will learn your lesson. You will learn to fear and respect your betters before I kill you."

Shirou cocked his head to the side in confusion. "Fear? It's only death."

The King of Heroes narrowed his eyes. "You really don't know fear, do you? It may be just death for you, but not for your companions. I will give your sister to Kotomine for his service."

He languidly waved his hand and the space behind him shimmered with gold.

"Right," Shirou said. " _Trace On._ Everyone, duck!"

Familiar hilts sprung into his hands and everything around him burst into motion. Kotomine reached back and threw a Black Key at Tohsaka's forehead which flipped through the air in a graceful arch which would have suited a throwing dagger and not a one-handed sword. There was an eerie screech, and something translucent swept from above, intercepting the blade. It was a crystalline bird the size of a medium dog that got pierced through the chest, and then the impact threw it against a hall wall where it dissipated into silvery dust. The blade clanked to the floor.

Rin ducked as the impaled bird flew over her head, reached into her back and threw a handful of gem daggers at Kotomine that shattered in the air and turned into bowling-ball-sized black spheres that screamed through the air as they rushed at the priest trying to box him in. Kirei was forced to jump into the air and flip into a horizontal position, narrowly fitting between two balls and then landing back on his feet. His eyes were burning with life.

Rider dashed forward and launched both of her nails at Gilgamesh adding her own inertia to the throw, but he knocked them off course without budging an inch, and she had to pull them back by their chains.

 _He doesn't need to move or speak to utilize his Phantasm._

There was a golden ripple in the air behind Gilgamesh, and a silver greatsword flew at Shirou's heart, forcing him to take a step sideways. He felt the surge of speed the blade gave him by coming into existence so close to Kaze no Nagare. More sword started coming for him, slowly cutting the routes to escape. The only reason he was still alive was because with every bladed weapon that came near him, Kaze no Nagare got a little bit stronger, and he got faster.

"Where is Bazett?" he asked, deflecting an obsidian spear covered with blue runes.

"Your little Irish friend?" Gilgamesh asked. "Taking a bath, I imagine."

Shirou looked at him with incredulity, and Gilgamesh sent five axes at the same time at him in return. The Faker sidestepped two, blocked two, and one nicked him on the shoulder, making him grit his teeth in pain. Shirou pushed himself to summon blades faster.

"A true King has no need for lies."

"But he apparently needs to take hostages."

"Well, couldn't have your running, could we? This play was starting to grow boring, which is why it is time for the grand finale. Don't disappoint me, and I might grant your allies a swift death."

Shirou didn't attack. He knew he wouldn't be getting a second chance, and that meant getting everything absolutely right before making his move, even if he had to rely on everybody else to stay alive without his help. Rider seemed to be fine due to her superior speed, and because most of the weapons were getting fired at him. She was faster than him without any Mystical enhancement. Illya stayed directly behind Shirou, using him as a shield. Meanwhile, Sakura and Tohsaka were fighting the false priest.

" _Gandr-gandr-gandr-gandr-gandr-gandr!_ "

"Nee-san, calm down! You are not a machine gun, it will tire you out."

"Your family is nearly bankrupt," said Kotomine. "You can't afford all those jewels."

Rin was the hall with black fist-sized curse balls that made small craters wherever they impacted. Kotomine was fast, experienced, and very capable, but even he needed an opening to push through and instead he had to keep dodging. He was getting closer though and starting to throw Black Keys from time to time now that Rin started to tire despite using Mana-filled crystals Shirou had produced for her.

"Tohsaka, pace yourself!" commanded Illya, launching a glowing sparrow at Kotomine forcing him to step back and spin in place to block the creature with Black Keys in both hands. "Remember the fucking plan!"

Shirou would have liked to take a good look at his sister when she was giving her all to fight seriously and not wasting energy on trying to appear a little girl. Unfortunately, Gilgamesh had just moved on to throwing bigger objects at him.

 _Was that a solid-gold table? What the hell?_

"You creatures are so amusing. Thinking you can devise a plan that will work on me by scrunching your tiny little brains." Gilgamesh summoned a monstrous mounted beast head with horns from the Gate and hurled it at Shirou. "There is only one worthy among all of you, and she will join me when she sees me defeat you."

"Why are you throwing junk at me?" Shirou asked. "Did you run out of swords?"

"Nice try, dog, but I can see you getting faster with every blade. You should be honored because I will bury you in riches!"

Shirou had to hand it Gilgamesh that the man might have been arrogant, but he wasn't dumb. His heart thumping in his ears at two hundred beats per minute, the Faker drew upon the Emiya Magic Crest, using the Mana to speed himself up.

 _"Double Accel."_

He couldn't go as far as his father, but with the swords in his hands and a hundred other swords lying around the room, it wasn't necessary. Shirou dug into the ground with Reinforced toes and threw himself forward at top speed, just as Rider finished her preparations.

 ** _"Bellephoron!"_**

A comet of light and a blur of steel moved to box in the most powerful Servant. Shirou knew he would get hurt by Rider's Phantasm hitting something in such close proximity but it didn't matter. Just to make sure he made it, he spawned ten Mystic Code swords and launched them forward at Double Accel velocity. Even Gilgamesh couldn't avoid them like this.

He didn't.

Chapter end notes

First of all, apologies to those who have been waiting for a chapter. I have a bad habit of setting unreasonably high expectations for myself and then disappointing both myself and others, hence the delay. I have, however, managed to put a lot of work into this chapter, and I hope it shows. As Arkada of Glass Reflection says, the ending is paramount, so I try not to cut corners now that we are nearing the end.

About the cliffhanger. I wanted to put the entirety of Shirou's battle with Gilgamesh into this chapter, but the size started getting kind of out of hand, and the next chapter would have ended up chibi-sized. Don't look at me, everyone does cliffhangers these days.

If you like Eye of the Sword, spread the fun. Favorite and review buttons are easy to reach.

Happy winter holidays.

Stay shiny and until next time.


	10. Realizations and Resolutions

Author's Intro

Hello, everyone.

A thousand followers. Just wow. Back when I first started writing this, a friend of mine (who introduced me to Fate/Stay Night) was really surprised it got any sort of traction. This is my first story on , and the fact that it got this kind of a response while not even being in one of the more popular fandoms means a lot to me. Thank you all, and I will try to entertain you with the remainder of Eye of the Sword and with whatever I write next (more about that in the end of chapter notes).

Here is the final chapter, I hope you enjoy it. There will be an epilogue in a couple weeks, maybe a month, but this is the last chapter where there is action.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

 _Thoughts._

 _"Arias and other Mysteries."_

 ** _"Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."_**

Full notes at the end of the chapter. Let's hop in.

Realizations and Resolutions

 ** _"Tsubame—"_**

Assassin lowered himself into a stance that had no business being used in real life. His feet were more than twice his shoulders' length apart, and he held his oversized katana parallel to the ground over his head. As he said the activation word both he and katana blurred.

Saber's instincts were borne of a thousand battles, and she could tell where her opponents' strikes would land from watching their blade, feet, or torso—it didn't matter. And right now her instincts told her that Assassin was about to cut her across her neck. And from her left shoulder to her right thigh. And from her right shoulder to her left thigh.

She understood something then: this man who was so inappropriately summoned as the Assassin was simply the better swordsman. Had he been a Knight class like her, Saber would have lost in a straight swordsmanship duel. Keeping her eyes on the tip of the katana that seemed frozen in time, she wondered if that was what her Master felt when going up against impossible odds. No, of course that wasn't what Shirou felt. Her Master would simply do everything in his power to win and then die with a serene expression on his face if he didn't succeed.

A certain hill in England flashed before her eyes. The place where her body bled out even now, locked in a futile deal with a corrupted artefact. She would return there the moment she died, never to see her Master or his friends again. ** _"_** ** _—_** ** _Gaeshi!"_** finished Assassin, finally taking a step forward. She thought she heard a swallow's cry.

"I'm not going back!" Saber answered.

Three katana strikes headed for her at the same time. The impossibility of what she saw made her head hurt. There was one arm, one katana, and one moment in time, and yet the arm holding the katana was in three places, and Koujirou himself was in three stances. Saber had barely a foot between herself and the wall behind her, and the fact that she had less reach than her opponent meant that she was within his range and couldn't backpedal. So she did what Archer would do.

Just as the strikes were coming toward her, Saber let go of her sword. She could see Assassin's eyes widen in surprise when all of his slashes reached her armor and started carving into it, before an explosion of air threw them both to opposite walls, blowing out the windows and shattering the furniture into kindling.

Saber's front plate clattered to the floor, and she winced. The blade had passed through her magical armor as if it had been made of wood and not of the strongest metals the smiths of Camelot could find. It also made three short shallow cuts on her skin: on her collarbones and through most of the bandages she had used to squish her breasts to her body to minimize that additional vulnerability of her gender. She was glad Shirou didn't see with bandages hanging loosely from her bloody front.

As the sounds of metal clashing with metal raged in the hall next door accompanied by a cannonade of explosions, Saber stood up and picked up her now golden sword. She walked to the prone form of Sasaki Koujirou who was only now beginning to stir.

She was happy with how the results of her trick—calling it a technique would have been too generous. Invisible Air worked by wrapping high-speed wind around the blade in a way that refracted light, making the sword invisible. It contained an enormous amount of energy, and she could release all of that in a pinch by blasting the wind at her opponent. The move took time, though—something she hadn't had in this fight. But the technique relied on her Mana to keep itself stable; by letting go of the hilt and consciously cutting the flow of energy to the technique, Invisible Air turned into an unstable sheath of super-sonic winds condensed into a very small space, which resulted in an explosion.

Saber thought Shirou would be proud of her, even as she felt a hint of disgust at herself for the way she had won. Having stepped around the debris that now littered the entire room, she walked up to Koujirou and pressed her sword to his neck.

"You may have the technique, but you don't have Knight's strength or durability. Yield."

Koujirou opened blood-red eyes and looked up at her, a pained smile spreading on his lips.

"I thought you were a knight, Saber. Guess I was wrong," he said, closing his eyes again. "Also, fix your armor."

"Sorry?"

"You look like a whore from my time."

Saber looked down. Sure enough, the bandages hung in loose arcs, and her straight posture was the only reason she wasn't more exposed. She felt heat rising up her neck.

"Yield," she repeated.

Assassin made an effort to raise his hands, but all it accomplished was a small twitch.

"I yield. I think I have most of my ribs broken."

Saber nodded, bent down, and started to unwrap the belt—obi—that tied Assassin's kimono together.

"Saber?"

Saber ignored him, opened the kimono, and took a look at Assassin's body. Black-blue bruises blossomed all over his chest where he had taken the attack, two ribs looked like they had completely snapped, and there was swelling all over the place indicating multiple fractures. She closed the kimono, walked up to Assassin's katana and threw it out the castle window.

As Saber headed toward the sounds of battle, she said, "Shirou would probably also break your legs and arms to make sure you didn't rejoin the battle. I hope you don't betray my trust."

Assassin chuckled drily and closed his eyes, a faint smile on his lips. It had been a good battle: Assassin's technique was deadly. If it completed properly, she wouldn't be worrying about her modesty, because Tsubame Gaeshi was designed to simultaneously decapitate and disembowel a stationary target.

Saber shook her head, picked up her front plate, put it against her armor, and fixed the cuts with Mana. She then exited the room into the hall and froze.

###

While Saber had been busy turning around her fight against Sasaki Koujirou, Shirou found himself barely holding up against Gilgamesh. Rider launched her Noble Phantasm at the ancient hero. Bellerophon was one of the more powerful Phantasms in existence, but its true power lay in its speed, penetrating momentum, and the ability to hone in on its target. Once it was fired, nothing short of straight up overpowering it with another Phantasm would work.

Which was why what he was staring at now should have been impossible.

Pegasus was suspended in the air, held by a golden net. The majestic beast's neck had been broken by the high-speed impact with the chains Gilgamesh had thrown at it. They looked so fragile, and yet they didn't even budge when the flying horse slammed into it at supersonic speed. Something clicked in Shirou's mind.

"Enkidu," he whispered, yet the word carried over the entire hall.

"You have no right to say that name, Faker," Gilgamesh said, a murderous fire burning in his eyes. He summoned ten swords and hurled them one after another at the corpse of Pegasus while Rider watched. "Ignorant dogs! Not only do you dare to fight against me yourselves despite not being worthy to lick the dirt of my boots, but you also send your pets after me. I won't be degraded to fighting a mongrel's mongrel!"

After every few words another sword would be hurled, staining what little white fur still remained on Pegasus with a splash of red.

"Stop it!" cried Rider, launching herself at Gilgamesh, but he simply gestured, and the chains caught her during her reckless assault.

"Do you see how futile your resistance is?" he said, looking at Rider with eyes full of debased hunger. "I think I might keep you, woman. Yes, you look sturdy enough. Oh, how I will enjoy breaking you… And then we can eat stakes made of your pathetic horse."

"Stop, stop, stop!" Rider kept repeating the word, now staring at the floor.

"Oh? Was the Beast something more to you? Were you his mare?" Gilgamesh asked with a polite, curious smile that didn't do anything to soften the rictus of insanity he now wore on his face.

During this entire exchange, Shirou didn't pay much attention. If he failed, he would make sure to kill Rider—she deserved at least that much. Gilgamesh's idea of how women should be treated made death seductive by comparison. No, what he needed was to come up with a plan. Tohsaka, Sakura, and Illya were starting to tire out Kotomine, and he had little doubt they could eventually win if no one interfered. Saber was still tied up in the adjacent room, as evidenced by ear-splitting explosion that echoed through the hall, but he didn't doubt she could handle Assassin. None of it mattered, because as soon as Gilgamesh finished describing to Rider his plans for her (that for some reason involved wild animals, dead people, and objects with spikes), he would flatten them one after another. Without Shirou, Saber's Avalon Projection would vanish, and she wouldn't stand a chance. Everyone would die.

He had no choice.

 _"Trace On."_

Shirou reached deep into his subconscious, grasping the entirety of his Reality Marble, reaching for one being that didn't belong. It didn't take long to find him, and Shirou flooded all of his Circuits with Od, praying to the deities he didn't believe in for Rider to occupy Gilgamesh's attention for just a few seconds more.

"What the hell are you doing, kid?"

Archer's voice sounded more panicked than irritated in his mind, but Shirou shut it out. He needed his entire focus for he was about to do.

 _"Judging the concept of creation."_

Normally, all the steps of his variation of Gradation Air happened almost simultaneously and didn't require a verbal Mantra, but this was no normal Tracing. He saw an ocean of fire that burned right through the body and into his soul. He could smell ash that covered all of Archer's emotions and blackened them until only metal was left.

 _"_ _Hypothesizing the basic structure."_

He could see the endless hours of training and battle that had turned Archer into the man he now was. Blood flooded his vision joining the fire. Shirou heard Tohsaka cry somewhere in the distance and realized that blood vessels in his nose started rupturing, but he couldn't stop now. If he did, he had no idea what would happen, but he had no doubt it would be very bad.

 _"Replicating the composition materials."_

This time, it wasn't in his mind. Shirou felt Archer's Circuits manifest and burn into his own body, and it was only then that he realized fully what he was doing. The world faded as his heartbeat became audible to him. He didn't hear Gilgamesh anymore, so he had to hurry.

 _"Imitating the skill of its making."_

Archer was a weapon. Shirou was a weapon. Their bodies were made of swords. It was simply a matter of projecting somebody else's blades inside him instead of his own. They weren't real blades, of course, just muscle and tendons and blood. The transformation wasn't complete but that was also okay. Something burst in his left eye and he knew he wouldn't be able to see with it for a while. He didn't care as long as everyone else would be safe.

Shirou took a deep breath and finished in one go.

 _"Sympathizing with the experience of its growth. Reproducing accumulated years. Excelling at—"_

He blacked out at those words, but he did so with a smile.

###

Archer was beating at the walls of his prison inside Shirou's mind when he felt the idiot boy start to draw him out. Shirou could never hope to complete the process, he wasn't strong enough.

"You fool, stop this! It's not too late to go back!"

And then he started to see through the boy's right eye and had barely three seconds to try and reach his alternative self before the boy did something monumentally stupid. He didn't make it in time.

Archer stood in a half-destroyed hall of the Einzbern castle. To his right side Tohsaka, Sakura, and Illya had backed Kotomine into a corner and were frantically pelting him with curses and crystal constructs. Tohsaka looked angry, Sakura was crying, and Illya simply looked determined.

In front of him the net of Enkidu held Rider, and behind it Gilgamesh stared at him in shock.

His body was a mess. He bled from every orifice externally and there was a lot of internal damage. Breathing hurt, and he could see with only his right eye. He didn't even want to imagine what fighting would feel like. But the idiot boy had done it. He had somehow managed to summon Archer into himself, using his own body as a template.

"Suicidal idiot," Archer said and then sighed. "Well, nothing else to do, I suppose."

With a flick of his wrist he summoned three dozen demonic swords and hurled them at the chains holding Rider together. His Projections shattered upon impact, but it did make Enkidu loosen up a bit. Rider wasn't a goddess, just somebody cursed by the gods, so the bonds' power against her was limited. She growled, twisted her body in a display of acrobatics that would have made a snake jealous and wrenched herself free, both her shoulders dislocated by her escape.

Archer winced just from looking at it. That was going to hurt like hell in the morning, but it wasn't his problem.

 ** _"I am the bone of my sword."_**

"You dare!"

Gilgamesh began opening the Gate of Babylon wider and hurling tons of what was probably junk to him at Archer. A lot of the objects weren't weapons at all—the tactic the King of Heroes had learned while fighting Shirou. What his enemy couldn't have known was that Archer's armory, unlike Shirou's, was inexhaustible. And he had seen most of what Gilgamesh had while fighting him before, during the times he came back to the War.

 _I should thank Tohsaka for performing the ritual perfectly. I remember everything._

His favorite twin blades materialized in his hands and he batted away a spear that he didn't manage to deflect with one of his blades in time. Kanshou rematerialized even before it fully broke.

 ** _"Steel is my body and fire is my blood."_**

Almost as an afterthought, Archer sent an explosive supersonic sword to where Kotomine had hunkered up desperately trying to defend himself with Black Keys.

 _"Double Accel,"_ said Shirou somewhere at the back of his mind.

The boy's voice was faint, but it was enough. The Magic Crest Archer had never had flared on his back and the blade sped up, impacting the wall near Kotomine and blossoming into a whirlpool of violet flame. Archer didn't give it a second glance—he had his own fight. The Gate of Babylon now covered almost the entire span between the walls and he could barely step away and duck under the avalanche of Golden King's projectiles. Rider had taken a nail in her mouth, and now whirled beside him, deflecting and redirecting what little she could. Archer hurled his swords at an axe headed for her head and summoned a new pair almost instantly while crouching under a spinning flamberge. Gilgamesh was overwhelming him.

But Gilgamesh was at his limit of how much he could bring to bear in an enclosed space, and Archer was far from being done.

 ** _"I have created over a thousand blades."_**

He could feel the echo of the boy's exultation at the words. Archer mentally chuckled. This, at least, they had in common—the joy of making weapons. His Tracing sped up.

 ** _"Unknown to Death."_**

Didn't the boy know what he had done? What kind of damage he wrought upon himself? Even now ARcher could feel his Chakra burning through the boy's Circuits, felt the muscles tear themselves over and over again as he moved at speeds that this body couldn't handle. He knocked away five spears at once with Kanshou and Bakuya.

 ** _"Nor known to Life."_**

Archer couldn't risk utilizing Kaze no Nagare. He wasn't used to that weapon.

 ** _"I have withstood pain to create many weapons."_**

They were about even with Gilgamesh now. His own weapons were not so much Traced as brought directly from his Reality Marble, the Tracing delay having decayed to almost nothing. The sound of shattering swords was such that it was impossible to hear anything anymore, and he could see fear in Gilgamesh's eyes as the King of Heroes took an involuntary step back.

"We are winning!" said Rider, batting aside an enormous obsidian scythe.

And apparently that had been the straw that broke the camel's back. Really, why people felt the need to jinx everything was beyond him. Archer groaned internally as he saw resolve harden in the demigod's eyes, as the king gestured to the side, his fingers fanned out.

 _No, no, no! We still aren't in my Marble!_

 ** _"Yet, these hands will never hold anything."_**

He knew he wouldn't make it but he had to try. A portal opened at Gilgamesh's fingertips and brilliant red poured out of it, nearly blinding Archer which he was thankful for. He had to move so as to put Rider between himself and Gilgamesh. He knew that if he saw the damn sword it would all be over.

 ** _"Tremble before the might of Ea, the Earth Splitter!"_**

"Get away from my Master!"

Saber's voice cut through Gilgamesh's threat just when red started to fill the entire hall. There was a thunderous crack, and a roaring golden beam flew at the King of Heroes. It wasn't particularly fast, not like his own arrows, but it broke through the blades in the air without slowing down, and its warm light killed the Ea's angry red wherever they touched. Archer took the chance.

 ** _"So as I pray, Unlimited Bladeworks!"_**

Everything clicked into place, the world dimmed for a moment, and the next moment they were in his domain. Giant gears turned in the sky, sand the colour of rust creaked under his boots, and the ground was littered with blades.

"How dare you—"

Archer didn't wait for Gilgamesh to finish. The red was still battling with the golden light, and he didn't plan on letting them finish their fight, so he threw everything. With Shirou's Circuits and his own experience, the power he could bring to bear was beyond anything he had felt during the hundreds of years he had served as Counter Guardian. He reached out with his Od and felt the ground beneath his feet start to vibrate as the swords embedded into the ground over the entire rusty plain began to quiver in anticipation. A hundred legendary blades dislodged themselves from the earth, but the vibration under his feet only intensified, now turning into a small tremor. He heard it now: the low rumble of earth that emanated from every sword for miles around as they struggled against the soil. With a burning pain in his chest, he wrenched all of them free and fired.

By the time Archer was done, there was a fifty-foot crater where Gilgamesh had stood. He couldn't smell even a whiff of the Golden King's prana as his barrage had obliterated everything.

Archer said. "That's what you get, you golden prick. I swear, like a record stuck on repeat: 'you dare, you dare'. Might have been a bit of an overkill though," he said, collapsing to his knees and ejecting them all out of the Marble and back into now thoroughly destroyed hall.

A moment later he felt cold lips on his mouth.

"Thank you," Rider breathed out into him.

"What for?" he said. Getting kissed was nothing few, although he didn't recall Rider ever doing that.

"For saving me from that—" She shuddered. "I don't know what to call him. Definitely not an animal, it would be an insult to animals everywhere."

"Hey, hands off Shirou, you tramp!"

Rider stood up with obvious reluctance before schooling her features into her normal impassive expression.

"This isn't Shirou, Tohsaka-san," she said, shaking her head. "Can't you feel it?"

At this point Archer collapsed onto his back, Shirou's body finally giving out under the pressure of maintaining the Servant's abilities. To be honest with himself, he was surprised the boy had lasted that long. He must have trained hard during much of his life to be able to hold out against Archer's full power even for a few minutes.

"What do you mean 'it's not Shirou'?" Tohsaka knelt next to him, and he couldn't help but laugh.

The sound came out dry and broken. "I missed this," Archer said. "Knowing that when I do something stupid I will invariably see your face."

Rin blanched, and Sakura gasped nearby.

"Archer?" Tohsaka asked, rubbing a Command Spell on her hand. "I thought that didn't look like how Shirou described his Marble. How are you here?"

Now that he was lying completely still, the rate at which his Mana damaged the body he was in had slowed down, so he could at least speak without imminent death looming over him. It was still looming, just not so imminently.

"That idiot lover of yours tried to Trace me, but quickly found he didn't have what it took to fully manifest me. So he had somehow managed to Project me, another person and a Servant to boot, on top of his own body."

He thought that is Tohsaka went any paler, she risked breaking the color palette and suddenly flipping to black.

"How are you—how is he—how is the body you are in even alive?"

Archer was about to shrug, but thought better. Rin had moved his head into her lap, and it felt good.

"I'm taking a guess here, but I think it's because we are close to being the same person. At the very least, same genetics, and his Circuits are healthier than mine ever were—the only reason they were able to handle it for a while." He made an effort to raise his head a little and looked at Tohsaka with all the gravity he could master. "But he doesn't have long." His tone turned soft. "You know what you need to do, Rin."

The girl who would grow up into the woman he had loved shook her head vehemently, and tears started to well up in her eyes. "No. You look too much like him. Twisted, hopeless, snarky, selfless, useless…" Each word was punctuated by a light thump of her fist on his chest. "I can't, I simply can't—"

"Rin. He will die. The boy you love will die, and so will I. There is no scenario where the both of us come out of this alive. He has no more than ten minutes left and every moment risks permanent damage. Even Avalon isn't all-powerful when it comes to Circuits, otherwise mine wouldn't have ever ended up all banged up."

Putting all his heart and a considerable amount of will into the movement, he reached for the fist still thumping on his chest and took it into his hand. Archer was dimly aware they had an audience, but he simply couldn't bring himself to care.

"Do it, Rin."

She nodded with a jerk of her head, blushed scarlet, bent down, and gave him a quick peck on the lips. Even in his state, Archer managed a raised eyebrow and an amused smirk.

"What was that for?"

"I am sorry, Archer. I do love him."

He chuckled, coughing up a bit of blood this time. "No reason to apologize for being the second beautiful woman to kiss me in one day."

She nodded, and a tear fell onto his face. And then the vulnerable girl was gone, and the heir to the Tohsaka name was all that was left.

 _"By the power of the Command Spell, vanish!"_

He felt part of his power dissipate, but it wasn't enough. A sign disappeared from the back of Tohsaka's hand. She gritted her teeth but continued.

 ** _"I said, by the power of the Command Spell, vanish!"_**

Archer had expected to feel power siphon into the distance or go to one of the Lesser Grails present.

Instead he found peace.

###

They were climbing the side of the mountain on donkeys when the phone rang.

How they had ended up in here wasn't anything new; they've been on a tour, visiting Aoko's friends. Even after knowing the girl for years, Dietrich still wasn't able to separate people into those she held real affection for and those she just liked to unnerve for giggles. The woman living in the temple they were climbing toward was famous for her advances in electricity-based Magecraft, which is why she had picked a place to live where there were no electronics of any kind. Judging by the fact that the donkey they had for baggage also had a microwave and a battery strapped to it, Yui Ling wasn't a real friend.

"I feel like my ass is about to revolt and secede from my body from riding an ass all day," Aoko said.

Dietrich rolled his eyes. He was glad she was in a good enough mood to make terrible puns, but he didn't share it. He picked up the satellite phone. "Dietrich speaking."

"It's Waver. Shirou is in trouble."

Waver's voice was a whisper wrapped in static. Gladstone pulled on the bridle, and the donkey stopped without any change to the melancholy look in its eyes. Really, the three animals they had rented were like depressed robots. He pushed the phone closer to his ear and covered with his other hand to shield it from the wind.

"I'm listening."

"I don't have much time. We are already in Singapore, and I was able to lose them for a moment by going to a bathroom, but there is only so much time a man can spend peeing. Barthomeloi finally figured everything out. She has sent me and a clean-up crew of Enforcers."

The German Magus rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "What are her orders?" he asked.

"Destroy the Grail and bring everyone involved to the Clock Tower for examination and, if necessary, Sealing."

"Shit."

"Why have we stopped?" asked Aoko.

"Barthomeloi has sent a pack of her dogs to Fuyuki," he told her. "She wants to dismantle the Grail and get everyone into custody."

"Who are you with?" asked Waver. "Can they help?"

"Maybe. Look, I appreciate you calling, but I'm in Tibet now, so I don't know how fast I can get to Fuyuki."

Aoko was listening intently now, and she had that manic gleam in her eye that promised a speedy and painful resolution to all of Dietrich's problems. He knew why he liked her far more than was good for him, but even he had to admit she was one crazy Mage. Although it might have come with the territory: a normal person couldn't just wake up and discover another True Magic.

Dietrich said, "Although I might make it in time. Go back to your team. If you get to Fuyuki, and I'm not there, stall."

"Wait! How will you get—"

Dietrich cut the connection and turned his head fully to Aoko.

"I'm sorry, but I need to go. Let's get to the next plateau. There should be something in my baggage for controlled falling—"

"And what will you do against a team of Enforcers?"

"Kill them," Dietrich said, without hesitation. "Wait a second."

He fished his phone out again and types a message to Shirou, Tohsaka, and Sakura.

 _Kids, you alive?_

 _Yes, Gladstone-san_ , answered Sakura. _Shirou injured. Regrouping._

 _Enemy Masters?_

 _Dead, except Kotomine. He is treating Shirou._

Dietrich raised an eyebrow at that but didn't comment. _Good. Clock Tower is coming for the Grail. Team of Enforcers. Stall until I get there unless you can secure a victory. Waver is with them._

A minute passed before the answer came.

 _This is Tohsaka. Understood. Picking up what we need and going to the caves under the Ryuudou temple. Get back ASAP._

Dietrich stowed his phone away.

He said, "Everyone is still alive somehow, but I need to get there, or next time they'll throw the entire Clock Tower at the kids."

Aoko shook her head, frowning. "I've met Lorelei, you know," she said. "What I mean is, she really hates anything corrupted, and she hates losing people even more. If your kids are forced to kill the Enforcers, she won't stop until they are dead."

"What do you suggest?"

The change should have been almost imperceptible: Aoko's spine straightened somewhat, and her eyes gained a sharper edge.

"I think it's time we gave the Association a reason to stay away," said the Blue. "I am interested in the boy and his abilities. It would be a shame for him to die." She smiled, and the Mage turned back into the girl. "Besides, I've been itching to try this technique I've developed."

They were moving again by that point and a widening of the ledge appeared in sight. Enough space for them to get off.

"Aoko, you are only slightly above average at complex Mysteries, and teleportation isn't under the purview of the Fifth Magic, not that I'd ask you to use that." A faint buzzing started to fill the air, and he shuddered. "And why are you firing up your Circuits? We are halfway up a mountain. Blowing things up would be a very, very bad idea."

"Don't be silly, I'm not going to blow things up. Just a bit of Reinforcement."

She walked up to Dietrich and placed a hand on his chest. He would have liked to think the following shiver was because of her feeding Mana into his system and directing it to various part of his body where Dietrich took over and Reinforced everything to the best of his ability. It was the skill he had picked up from his adopted son and something he was immensely grateful for. Aoko stood up on her tiptoes and brought her lips to his ear, which was unnecessary—there wasn't anyone around.

"I'll save your son and even stay and help train him, but I have one condition." She traced a fingernail just behind his ear, making him freeze up. "We date."

She jumped back at that, having finished with the Reinforcement and looked Dietrich up and down with a mischievous smile. He was sure all the blood in his body went to his face.

"Aoko, I— you are ten years younger than me," he said, shaking his head.

She rolled her eyes and said, "Yes, yes. And were I twelve, that would have been a problem in many countries, I'm sure. But I'm not twelve, am I?" She gestured to her body without any hint of shame. "And I figured that if I left everything to you, you would still be spouting that 'I'm too old for you, and we are only friends' crap until I'm ninety."

She stepped forward, suddenly looking less sure and avoiding meeting his eyes.

"So how about it?"

Dietrich shook his head, more in exasperation than in denial. They had met back when she really had been a wide-eyed daredevil of a girl to him. Somewhere along the way things had changed, and here they were now.

"No?" she asked, stepping back, her expression falling.

"No! I mean, yes! Damn, why doesn't this get easier with age?" His hands went through his hair, and he groaned. "Let's just go."

She smiled at that, and it was one of those rare smiles he treasured that held no irony or mischievousness. Skipping, Aoko went to the baggage donkey, picked up the bags, and dragged them back to him. She then pulled out climbing ropes, stepped behind him, and started fastening them to each other with experience that belied her years.

"Aoko, what are you doing?" he asked, proud at how calm she sounded, considering her entire body was now pressing into his.

"Would you rather I be in front of you? I don't think we are that close yet. Are we?"

He groaned and facepalmed wondering how exactly he had ended up in this situation, dozens of miles away from civilization being literally tied to an insane person.

"You might want to hold on to me," she said.

"What?"

"You heard me. My hands will be busy steering and I'm not sure the ropes will hold. They are supposed to, you know, but they were made in China, so—"

He suddenly had a premonition of being hurled to his death from great height.

"Aoko?"

"Yes, Dietrich?"

"How the hell do you plan to get us to Fuyuki? Serious, this time. And what about the donkeys?"

"Maybe I picked the wrong man…" she said, trailing off. "Look, we are on a mountain facing East. Japan is in the East. Obviously, I'm going to fly us there. And fuck the donkeys, my butt still hurts. Ready? One, two—"

Dietrich grabbed her and held on for dear life, all inappropriate thoughts gone from his head.

###

Sometime during their fight against Gilgamesh Illya started to believe them. Shirou, Tohsaka, and Sakura simply told her they intended to stop the half-Homunculus ageing, assigned her duties in their little circus, and expected her to fulfill them. All the women (including Rider and Saber) had given her wary looks before Gilgamesh attacked them, but those were gone now.

All of this was why Illya was comfortable standing her ground in front of Bazett alongside other Masters while Saber faced Lancer. Well, as comfortable as she could be after the power of Heracles going into her. Good for her she hadn't been the closest to Gilgamesh when he had died. Not so good for Sakura.

"Please, Bazett-san! He will die!" said Sakura.

"I. Don't. Care." The Irish Enforcer forced the words out of herself in large bites. "Did you see what that sick fuck had done to the children in the basement of the church? Did you?"

"Well, no—"

"But you did see what he did to me, right? Spread on the wall naked, like some sex doll. Painted all over with fucking blood! Mana, siphoned out of me to give him a bit of an edge against you. The only thing keeping me from using a Command Spell for Lancer to murder that sack of loose stool water is because I respect you people. Stand aside."

Kotomine stood up from where he had been kneeling by Shirou's prone form. The middle-aged priest was a mess: his entire left arm had been blown off by Archer's exploding sword, and half his face was badly burned. Yet Kirei still managed to exude that calm arrogance that defined his being.

"I did what I could here." He looked at Tohsaka with a crooked smile. "What will you do now, children? Are you ready to fall to the level of simple beasts? Tohsaka, I have—"

Tohsaka spat on the floor and stepped to the side, letting Bazett through. The Enforcer had recovered her clothes at some point, and the Mystic arrays engraved on those flared into life when she dashed forward and hit Kotomine's chin with a rune-powered uppercut. A nonplussed look was all Tohsaka's former guardian could manage before a glowing metal band on Bazett's glove impacted his jaw, and then his head was gone in a spray of gore that impacted the church wall.

"Remind me to never piss her off," Illya said.

"Shut it, pipsqueak," Bazett said. "Gilgamesh, at least, acknowledged my usefulness as a woman. This pile of human refuse was worse."

Rider raised an eyebrow, and Bazett shrugged.

"Well, Gilgamesh admittedly did it in a way that made me want to feed him his own balls, but Kotomine… The bastard treated me as a thing, the same as those poor kids in the basement that I don't think will ever be able to recover even with the help of the best shrinks in the world. And everyone was the same inanimate shit to him: me, you, Gilgamesh, even himself."

"Good riddance, Master," said Lancer with a grim expression on his face. "Saber, you can relax. I have no reason to force myself past your resistance—" His own words caught up with him, and he thumped the side of his right fist against his forehead. "Damn that golden bastard. I won't be able to rid myself of allusions to rape for months now. Where to now?"

"Ryuudou Temple," answered Tohsaka. "If we want to survive this, we need the Servants. If we want to keep the Servants, we need the Grail. The Association are probably bringing curse-breakers and heavy hitters."

Lancer nodded, his expression blank. "They are only human Magi. We can defeat them," he said.

Tohsaka shook her head. "And then what? Will we fight the entire Association? The Church?" she said, frowning. "Plus, there might be something really bad for Spirits in their arsenal. We need to be careful, we need to avoid killing, and we need to stall, until Dietrich rides in and saves the day." She paused and shook her head. "I really hope he wasn't simply trying to raise our spirits."

Sakura, who had been standing silent up to this point, shook her head and said, "I think sensei can't help us, sister. We should run."

Tohsaka nodded without looking at Sakura. "Your opinion is noted and discarded. This is Shirou's plan. We all agreed to keeping Illya alive, and we can't do so without Saber. And she can't stay without the Grail or us pumping her full of energy manually which will leave us defenseless. End of discussion."

Illya looked at Tohsaka and Sakura in turn and then asked them, "Why me?"

"Shirou," said the sisters in a disturbingly synchronous manner.

###

Shirou woke up in the caves beneath Ryuudou Temple. At least that was what he assumed judging by the stench of corrupted Prana permeating the air and stalactites glistening in the dim light. Sakura's face moved into view as she knelt next to him.

"Senpai, you are awake."

"I told you—" He coughed. "—call me Shirou. What happened?"

Tohsaka and Illya joined Sakura, and suddenly there wasn't enough space above him.

"I thought I would die," he said looking up at the stalactites. Somewhere up their invisible drops of water were growing the stone spike bit by bit. "I knew I couldn't handle Archer's power for long. How am I still alive?"

Suddenly Tohsaka collapsed on top of him and buried her face into his chest. She was crushing his battered body, and violent sobs wrecked her frame. He didn't have the heart to tell her to stop. He looked to Sakura for help.

"Nee-san ordered Archer to vanish in order to bring you back, senpai," she said with a sad smile. "He is gone. And can I say something?" She didn't wait for his answer. "You are an idiot, senpai, for pulling what you did. But I still love you."

Shirou frowned prodding at his own emotions, trying to determine how he felt about the news. Eventually, he nodded, and put a hesitant hand around Tohsaka's shoulders. "Don't cry, Rin. I don't think he went back to the Root. I think this whole mess pulled him out of the system for good."

He had no way to prove it, but Shirou hoped it was so.

"And that is okay?" asked Tohsaka, raising her head and looking at him with wet eyes. "Him dying, just like that?"

Shirou shook his head and said, "You don't understand. I talked to him, been him. Despite his snark and between the few moments when he could lose himself in our company, life was torture for him. His ideals crushed him long ago."

Tohsaka's indignant expression showed that she didn't agree, but she decided to put her head back on his chest and cry quietly. Compared to her state moments ago, it was an improvement, but Shirou still didn't like seeing her sad. He turned his attention to Sakura and Illya. "Are you two okay? Did everyone else make it alive?"

The Einzbern heiress seemed to have abandoned her capricious mask as she said, "Yes, everyone else made it, nii-san. The Servants are collapsing parts of the cave system as we speak. We hope to funnel the Enforcers here."

Shirou closed his eyes and sighed. Of course, the fighting wouldn't be over simply because the War was. "How are you doing, really, Sakura, Illya? Servants have died near you—"

"Why did you save me?" his sister interrupted him.

Sakura was frowning at Illya, and Tohsaka muttered something unprintable into Shirou's wet shirt. Shirou simply raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't that what family is supposed to do? Help each other out?"

Illya rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "But we aren't family. I mean, I spent years thinking you were a spoiled brat father picked up simply because rescuing me from the castle was too much trouble."

He looked at his sister with pity. It seemed like she truly didn't understand, and he didn't know how to explain. "You never stopped being family, we just couldn't get to you. I'm sorry it took so long, and that father didn't live to see it."

And then Illya added her weight to Tohsaka, crumbling down completely and making it hard for the Shirou to breathe. The situation wasn't made any better by the fact that he was a teenage boy and not a sumo practitioner. He didn't have enough size for two girls to cry into his chest.

"You two…" Sakura said, her voice so cold Tohsaka and Illya froze. "Stop using senpai's injured body as a pillow! Get off."

She started with Illya who tried to fight back, but it was impossible with her weight. Then Sakura glared at Tohsaka, and her gaze seemed to possess physical power. Rin stood up.

A loud explosion sounded high above them, and Saber ran into the cavern, shortly followed by Lancer.

"We left Rider to delay them, but it won't last long. We'll need to fight soon."

This made everyone regain their composure, and Shirou was able to push himself into a sitting position. Physically, he was utterly broken. Muscles had been pulled and torn, his arms had swelling that indicated at least a few cracks, and he didn't want to even attempt standing. But his Circuits were a different matter. Archer hadn't had Shirou's raw power. His mystical abilities had atrophied after years of disuse, and after he finally started exercising them the way he did it led to damage to his body, manifesting as changes to his hair, skin, and eye color. His Circuits adapted somewhat, increasing their rotational speed and efficiency, but that wasn't what was important. Archer had to learn how to be extremely economical in his Magecraft, how to not waste an ounce of Mana when Reinforcing or Tracing. He had to streamline everything or he wouldn't be able to fulfill his dream of becoming a hero to the extent he had managed. Shirou didn't have this restriction given his Circuits were several times more powerful.

"We can overwhelm them," he said. "When Archer left, some of his skills stayed behind. I can feel it."

He stretched his hands out and summoned Kaze no Nagare with a barest flicker of Prana in the air. His other self had been able to replace shattered blades seamlessly in a fight. He wasn't quite at that level, but he didn't need to be.

"Saber, help me up."

He held a hand out to the knight, and she pulled him to wobbling feet after a moment of hesitation. Meanwhile Rider and Lancer returned. With Kaze no Nagare's speed boost he could move at almost normal speed, although it hurt. He addressed Bazett, who had been standing to the side, staring at the wall.

"Did you receive orders, Fraga-sensei?"

She seemed to snap out of it and shook her head.

He said, "Then I suggest you go into one of the dead end tunnels."

"And do what?" the Irish Master asked, eyeing him warily.

"And wait. I don't want one of your superiors ordering you to fight us."

She seemed to think on it for a while before calling Lancer to her side.

"Promise me you won't hurt them."

"Those are Enforcers. Aren't you worried they might hurt us?" Illya asked, looking at Bazett with disbelief. "They had the entire Clock Tower armory to pick from before coming here, after all."

Their ally shook her head and kept her eyes trained on Shirou. Eventually, he buckled. "I'll try to negotiate, but I can't promise we won't hurt them. We are all tired after all the fighting, and they will be fresh."

They then set up to wait. After a while Rider said, "They are coming. Two minutes."

Shirou nodded.

 ** _"I am the bone of my sword."_**

###

It had taken him days to pull himself back together from shattered soul fragments he had left over the city. It was pure luck something made the Servant's soul-trapping Mysteries dissolve, but now he wouldn't be relying on luck. It was time to wipe the board and start anew. Next time he would have to forge better pawns.

"How much longer?" asked Bert or Bart or Burt—he didn't care about the name.

"It is just around the corner," he said.

The man scrunched his nose, and Zouken was tempted to tell him that If he was this squeamish, he should have chosen another profession. Sure, he hadn't had the time to properly reconstruct his body, and the worms were rolling beneath the half-translucent scrim of some nameless woman's skin. Women were more resilient and thus suited his purposes better. There was, of course, the matter of several hundred crest worms crawling behind them that might have caused some unease among the Enforcers. He didn't care.

They walked into the cavern.

The boy stood supported by a stalagmite and the sheathed katana he used as a cane. Next to him were his rebellious granddaughter, her sister, and the Einzbern failure, all glaring at Zouken as if it wasn't them that had forced him into this state.

"Magi," said the Enforcer leader. "Surrender. Order your Servants to stand down and submit for questioning and examination as to whether you should be put under a Sealing Designation." A Magic Crest glowed on the man's right arm. "Or else."

There was a barely perceptible flash of light and a spear pierced the crestworm he had sent toward Sakura to reestablish the connection to the familiars inside her. It seemed that her being filled with the Grail's energies or him almost dying had disrupted his control. The Enforcers twitched but stayed in place.

"Stop this madness, granddaughter," Zouken said. "Isn't it enough that you crippled your brother and took up having sex with your sister? You have no hope against the might of the entire Association, deranged child."

All Zouken needed was to provoke them into using their Servants. He knew that the Enforcers couldn't fight against more than one Heroic Spirit and he knew there were more than one. He had precautions now—a chain of worms to help his soul piggyback out of there in an instant. And then the Association would bring everything they had upon his treacherous heir, and they might get the Church involved too. To his surprise, Sakura smirked. It wasn't a fake smile she sometimes wore, instead the seemingly kind girl's face twisted into something animalistic and hungry. The Tohsaka brat silently laid a hand on her shoulder, and Sakura's face softened.

"You are right, Grandfather. It is enough," She turned to her good-for-nothing boyfriend. "Shirou."

Zouken wasn't afraid of some boy. He could run before any attack reached him.

 ** _"So as I pray, Unlimited Bladeworks."_**

There was no attack, no feeling of movement, just an explosion of Mana that had been barely restrained moments before. Suddenly they stood upon a frozen plain littered with swords all over. Tiny particles of snow peppered Zouken's skin, and he started freezing. Once you ate someone from the inside with crest worms, the thermoregulation of skin went out of the window.

The air was as clear and blue as arctic ice, and there were no clouds in the sky. The snow came in tiny flakes seemingly out of nowhere and the ground looked as if it had been falling this way for centuries.

"Is this my realm, senpai? It is beautiful," Sakura said and then turned to look at Zouken with a grin that lacked any humor. "Do you like it, Grandfather?"

The Matou elder was too busy trying to reach out to the worms outside this frozen hell, but he couldn't find anything. It was as if his soul had been isolated from all his contingencies.

The boy said, "This man is worse than any Dead Apostle. He devours and violates his victims from inside using worms. If you defend him, you will die."

"Who do you think you are, boy?" asked the head Enforcer.

Waver El Melloi walked up to the Emiya brat and answered, "He is a sword. And I order you as a Lord to heed his warning, Brandon."

There was roaring somewhere above them, and Zouken looked up. There they were. Blades, blocking the brilliant winter sky and hurling at him at super-sonic speeds.

The last thought he ever had was that he had miscalculated again.

###

After they fell out of what must have been a Reality Marble, Brandon didn't know how to proceed. Shirou Emiya, the Magus Barthomeloi had warned them about, had proved to be more dangerous than anyone he had met before. He had managed to hold the Marble only for a minute, but during that minute Matou Zouken had been cut up, crushed, burned, frozen, crushed again, and scattered to the winds. Now the Servants had come, and Brandon wasn't sure what they had brought would be enough.

He looked to El Melloi, and the man shook his head. Still, the Enforcer had his duty, and his orders came from Barthomeloi herself. No Lord had the right to override that.

Brandon was reaching inside his jacket when the ceiling exploded, and a storm of dust and shards was launched at them. He had to shield his eyes with an arm that immediately got peppered with pebbles. When the view cleared, he froze. This wasn't good.

A Magus stood between their team and their opponents, although calling her a Magus was like saying a hurricane was a rapidly moving mass of water and airHer trousers and jacket had burned off up to her elbows and knees. Her red glowing hair wrapped around her body protectively, twisting in a dance that had nothing to do with the movement of air.

 _"Draw,"_ she incanted.

After one word, two dozen magic bullets materialized all in twin circles around her hands, and buzzing in the air intensified. Like a swarm of cicadas waging war on each other with miniature chainsaws. The bullets quivered in place. His newest subordinate, Mary, started reaching for an enchanted dagger for a dagger Mystic Code knife. Just as Brand was about to stop her, one of the bullets went off, flying across the cavern and blowing a ten-foot crater in the wall behind Mary.

"Stand down," he said unnecessarily (the girl just shivered in shock). "May I ask why you are here, Miss Aozaki?"

"A prerequisite for gong on a date with this guy," said the Blue.

She pointed at a man lying behind her, muttering something under his breath, and staring at the hole the two of them had blown in the cavern ceiling. Brandon tried to place the face of the half-crazed male Magus for a few moments before realizing it was Dietrich Gladstone.

Aoi said, "Now I would like you to lay off my apprentices and my latest research project and go back to England. I'll work out the details with Barthomeloi directly."

"But—"

The remaining bullets quivered. Brand sighed and turned around. They had brought weaponry against Spirits, but fighting the Blue would be suicidal. There was nothing that could contain or defeat that monster without weeks of preparation and a lot of luck. Even then, he wouldn't volunteer for that mission after seeing her produce twenty projectiles, each with the power of a rocket, with just one word.

"Apprentices?" he heard Shirou ask before he and his team went around a corner.

Chapter end notes

I'd like to thank you for reading this story. It's been an incredible ride, and the feedback has been nothing short of amazing. I hope you've had fun, because I certainly did.

There will be an epilogue in about a month, so don't forget this fic just yet. It is something of a custom nowadays to cut to credits after the protagonist kisses his beloved or after the good guys cave in (in a PG-friendly way) the skulls of the bad guys. I'm not one of the writers who do that, so I'll post a glimpse into Shirou and the gang's happily ever after.

I know some of you would have liked for this to turn into a three-hundred-thousand-word monster, but there was really no reason to create something of that size here. I would recommend 'From Fake Dreams' to you, but you've probably already read it. Moreover, there are many great long fics in the Fate/Stay Night fandom, both standalone and crossover, and I wanted to write something different.

What's next: besides writing the epilogue, I will go through the entire fic with the editor's chainsaw and sanded paper, performing extremely violent surgery and tender polishing. Hopefully, new people coming to read this will have even more fun, and if any of you decide to revisit the story, you will be rewarded. No changes to the plot, though.

I have two ideas for my next primary fic at the moment. The first one is a Star Wars cinematic universe crossover with the Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic games. It's been done before, but most of those stories are either simply bad or about an unbelievably powerful Jedi dropping in at some point during the prequels and completely breaking everything by sneezing too hard. I don't find that interesting, so I want to write a story where I'll focus on balanced combat, imaginative use of Force Powers, conflict between the Jedi Code and romantic feelings, and humor—the good stuff. The prologue is up now, so you can check it out on my profile page if you'd like (the name is 'Into the Maelstrom'). I'm looking for feedback to see whether I should continue it, so I would appreciate any of you popping by and sharing your thoughts. If it lifts off, it will be a fic that will take itself about as seriously as 'Eye of the Sword'.

The second idea is for a Naruto fic with Gamer mechanics. This one won't be a crossover. While I enjoy the Gamer manga, that has crossover been done before and done well. What I want to do instead is to graft elements from various tabletop and computer games I've played onto the Naruto universe. I would keep the story semi-serious, but there will be much more humor and possibly a small harem with insane dynamics. Because, hey, Naruto.

If all else fails I have this great idea for the rogue young adult wizard Harry Potter building a criminal empire on the West Coast with the help of his perverted magical hamster Dumbledore, daughter of a librarian and a mafia crime lord named Hermione and a beat cop named Ronald Weasley. The scene is set in the 1960s, and together these three plus the hamster will change the face of the world by inventing drugs that give you literal magic trips and laying the foundations of the wizarding sex toys industry. It will be glorious. I am fairly certain that writing it will drive me insane, though, so I hope people will like one of my semi-serious ideas.

I'll save the teary confessions about how awesome community is and how much of a help you all have been to me until the epilogue. Otherwise I'd have nothing in the author's notes to make readers uncomfortable, and that simply wouldn't do.

Until next time.

Stay shiny.


	11. Epilogue

Author's Notes

Hello, everyone.

Well, this is it. I would like to thank you all for reading. I've had so much fun with writing this story, and I hope that you liked it too.

I've edited all the previous chapters, so you don't have to worry as much about typos and text being clunky if you decide to get back to it some time.

Fonts used:

"Onii-san, let's go to the zoo and hug fluffy tigers." Speech

 _"_ _Es ist gross, es ist klein."_ Mysteries.

 ** _"_** ** _Cthulhu Tentacle Piledriver!"_** Overpowered Mysteries.

I still don't own Nasuverse, and I'm not making any money off this story. I'd like to thank Kinoko Nasu one last time for creating this awesome dark, hilarious, and hearteningly sincere universe for us all to enjoy and play with.

On to the epilogue.

Epilogue

Shirou sat quietly on the roof, breathing in and out, adding vapor to the mist that surrounded the land. In front of him lay a coal-black bow almost as tall as he was, and Shirou Emiya was a tall man. His eyes were closed, and soft light emanated from his ears.

He didn't take many jobs, even if the Association and the Church sent him wobbling heaps of offers. He mainly stuck to teaching students about underappreciated areas of Magecraft. This task, however, was something he couldn't ignore. The tiny Chinese village had little communication with the outside world, and it was only because a dozen villagers feinted an escape that he even heard of their plight. A twelve-year-old snuck out at the same time as two families were getting eviscerated on the outskirts. The village mined rare gems for the Edelfelt family, and he owed a debt to Luvia for all the help she had given back when they were working on dismantling the Grail and creating alternate energy feeds for the existing Servants. He hadn't slept in two days, so he Reinforced his nose to jolt himself awake. The air smelled like rot and blood and fear.

His earpiece crackled. "I see her," said Luvia. "Engaging."

Explosions started thomping in the distance, but Shirou couldn't see anything through the cloying mist. He stood up, held the bow in his left hand and reached out with his right.

 _"_ _Trace On."_

There was a familiar buildup of Od inside him, swelling behind his brain and exploding in a flare of energy right through his head and between his eyes. The familiar form of Gae Bolg, the demonic spear, appeared in his hand. It wasn't a weapon created to be comfortable for its wielder: thick artery-like metal strings melded with the crimson shaft, and the spear pulsed with primordial hunger.

 _"_ _Alter."_

This took more out of him, but he pushed through. Luvia didn't have much time, if the reports on the Dead Apostle were right. This one didn't enjoy playing with his food much. The spear quivered in his hands and what had been a thrown weapon flowed shorter and thinner, turning into an arrow. The veins on it became even more prominent, and the arrow vibrated with excitement in his hand.

"Soon," said Shirou and transferred the arrow to his left hand, holding it along with the bow.

"Shirou, I could use some help here," said Luvia into his ear.

Shirou called Firebrand. It was a sword that he was especially proud of. He made it himself, using the modern process for Damascus steel forging: starting by preparing a special mix of iron and carbon and then forging them together at several carefully controlled temperatures. He inlaid rubies along one side of the blade and drew a serpentine line of Runes for fire on the other side. He then gave the blade to Dietrich. His adopted father made the enchantment that would explode the blade when fed energy, charged it and showed it to Shirou before they fled the magically reinforced room they had used. They had lost both the room and the blade, but he now had a blade on the cusp of exploding at his beck and call. There was a lot you could do with blades, and even seven years after the War he felt he was only scraping the more obvious possibilities.

The sword appeared above his head, and Shirou shot it in the vague direction of their enemy. "Get behind cover," he said to Luvia. He heard the high-pitched whirling sound of one of the plasma tunneling gems they had developed with Tohsaka, and he went flat on the roof.

The explosion was a wave of orange arcane energy and bone-cracking heat that blackened the building he was hiding on, but, more importantly, it burned the Mystical smoke the village was covered in. The One Who Sleeps they called this Dead Apostle. She would go into small settlements and cover them in her mist, blinding everyone except herself. She would slowly devour the parents and then watch as they turned to mindless undead, chase down, and tear into the still living bodies of their own children. She would do this house by house, feeding on the terror and knowing that no one would be able to escape the mist. Both the Church and the Association had been chasing her for years, but it was only because someone escaped that they finally got a chance to destroy the monster that once had been a Magus. The Dead Apostle's son had died in a Mystical accident she had caused as a mortal, warping her mind into a deep hatred for all children that Shirou didn't care about. She was hurting kids—someone not able to protect themselves through no fault of their own. She needed to die.

He stood up and saw the thing. A beautiful woman with pale skin and long dark hair glistening in the moonlight like a sheet of dark steel. Leaning over Luvia lying on the ground, as if she was going to cradle the girl to her bosom.

 ** _"_** ** _Gae Bolg,"_** said Shirou and pumped half of his energy into the spear through all twenty-seven of his circuits.

He felt the Mystic Code ring on his right index finger shatter from the amount of power he had channeled, and the woman turned her heard backwards to look at him with a sickening crunch. Her body started to turn, seemingly without her legs moving under the billowing robes she wore. Her beautiful red lips parted into a bestial snarl, and she lowered her head as if to lunge at him, before he saw recognition pulse in those yellow eyes. Shirou released the arrow.

It streaked with the fury of a demon army, and the vampire tried to dodge, blurring like many Dead Apostle's did, but the Broken Phantasm didn't care for such things. Shirou wasn't the Irish Hound, and the target had a chance to get away from his fake weapon, but not with that kind of speed. Before the crimson light reached her, Shirou was notching another sword.

 _"_ _Caliburn. Alter,"_ he said just as the zigzag of red lightning reached the chest of the vampire, blowing a hole through it and pinning her to a wall behind her. He charged the golden arrow until it hummed in his hand, and loosed it at the momentarily immobile Dead Apostle. At the same time, Luvia got up from the ground, and groggily tossed a few stones for good measure. The resulting explosion knocked her back down.

When they were finished, the half of the village the monster had depopulated was in ruins, but the vampire was nothing but a pile of ash.

###

"We are lucky they are paying you full price with this kind of property damage," said Tohsaka.

They were sitting in the office of their manor. Sakura curled up against Shirou on a sofa, and he was absent-mindedly stroking her long violet hair while she slept. She thought the two of them never looked more peaceful.

"I'm glad she grew that back," he said. "I like it this way."

"I think she also has a new conditioner." Tohsaka wrote the total payment in her ledger and checked against their funds. She said, "You know, we could probably buy in. That gem mine the Edelfelts have over there, think they might let us in on it if we ask nicely?"

Shirou looked like he was going to shrug, but then looked at the sleeping Sakura leaning against his side. He said, "Depends on how big the pile of money we bring is. Their family isn't the kind you can just flatter and have them drop the price twenty percent."

"Mercenaries."

He smiled and said, "Aren't we the same?"

She got back to work, figuring how much they could spend. The mansion included dorms for students now, and they needed money to continue holding lessons. Salaries for staff, materials, utilities…

"I don't think we can afford it. Shame," she said.

"You know, I'm lucky to have you, Tohsaka," said Shirou. "I remember thinking you were kind of stuck up back when we met, but now I see I couldn't have asked for a better person to lead us."

She felt her cheeks redden and glanced up to look at him. Rin could see his expression soften in the warm light streaming from the chandelier above. She said, "Of course you are lucky, idiot. If you were my husband, I'd say you married well above your station, but, you know..." She shrugged. "You are still damn lucky."

He tilted his head and said, "Does it bother you? The life we have?"

This time she laughed, doing her best to muffle the sound not to wake her sister, and it came in undignified snorts that made her go even redder. She stopped eventually and said, "Shirou, before the Holy Grail War started all I wanted was to restore my family to being the best in Japan. I don't know if you noticed, doofus, but we are like royalty now. When we go to London with Saber and Rider, I can see Lords practically pee their pants in fear, and I'm not even twenty-five. We are rich, we are respected, we are powerful. We even have the Blue living in our house a lot of the time, which is just insane."

He looked far too serious, so she added, "And I have you and Sakura, and neither of us is complaining. Don't be an idiot. By the way, Lancer called. He wants you to go on a fishing trip with him and Koujirou next Wednesday."

Shirou looked at the ceiling, probably going through his itinerary. She said, "Don't bother, I checked. You are free."

"Just fishing rods?" asked Shirou. "Last time we went, Lancer caught two hundred pounds of fish by spearing them with a tree branch he picked off the ground, and Sasaki didn't want to be left behind, so he slashed the water. We had a river of sashimi by the end."

"They promised," she said. "But I wouldn't trust anything those two say."

"Do you want to go?" he asked.

"Sure. But tonight we sleep in."

 **The End**

End of story notes

First of all, thank you for going on this ride. The feedback I got for Eye of the Sword has been amazing. Back when I started, I made a lot of mistakes, but this story always had heart, even when it was rife with typos and point-of-view errors. You have been excited by my writing and kind from the start, and it has made working on Eye of the Sword a great journey.

I considered a really long epilogue with blocks for every single character but then thought better. It would be boring to look at Sakura gloat over her comatose brother, and Saber visit England, and Lancer finally landing a girl, and Assassin doing a pilgrimage to Tibet, and… Well, you get the idea. So I decided I would rather do just two connected scenes and keep it close in spirit to the epilogues of the original novel which are short and impactful. Hope you liked it. I might do a one-shot with all that stuff separately when I get a bit of distance from Eye of the Sword. You can mention it in a review if you'd like me to do so.

Neil Gaiman says that a novel is a long piece of prose with something wrong with it. This is doubly true for fanfiction. There is a lot wrong with Eye of the Sword, but I'm satisfied with what it ended up growing into. From the start, I wanted to see how a broken Shirou would react to violence and warmth, and what kind of people would stick by him and why, in spite of his nature. It was never about fixing what was wrong with him—I don't believe in fixing the way people are. I've answered the questions I had when I started this for myself, and I hope I've answered them for you.

What's next (this is shameless self-plugging, scroll to the end if you don't want to read it).

Shameless self-plugging begins.

There are two new fics I'm working on. You can find the links in my profile. The fic that gets better feedback will be the one that gets regular updates after the first three chapters or so.

"Into the Maelstrom" is a Star Wars story. It's a crossover between the movie universe and Knights of the Old Republic. Revan and the Exile get stranded in the movie universe that runs parallel to their own, and they try to find their way back, while fixing or exacerbating the problems of the Republic. The prologue and the first chapter are up, and that should be enough for you to see whether you like the story or not. I highly recommend going through the first chapter though, because the prologue ended up a bit cracky for my taste (might do something about that later).

"The Broken Creed" is a Naruto story. It is an alternative universe where things are somewhat more realistic (without a drop in power level of the major players) and Naruto has abilities that make him a lot like an RPG character. It's not a Gamer crossover, and the mechanics are there mostly as a catalyst to play with the Naruto world and have some fun character interactions. First chapter is up.

I, of course, want to become a professional author (who here doesn't?). The original novel currently called Beware of Light is set in distant future where humanity has reached for the stars and found nothing there. Our race is now spread across thousands of planets, but technology has stagnated and people whittle away at their lifespan through art, pleasure, and modifying their bodies with cybernetics. We find ourselves on a planet on the cusp of civil war, where a city has rebelled against the rule of oppressive immortals to get back control over their lives. If that sounds like your cup of tea, check out my profile. There is a link to the novel there, and I love it when people check it out.

Shameless self-plugging ends.

has been amazing to me. We have our share of bashers and really aggressive people, but overall it's an awesome community. If you have an idea rolling around in your head and trying to find its way out, I urge you to seat down and start writing. If you find you really like it, there are always ways to improve your grammar and style.

Finally, if you come here from the Fate/Stay Night or Unlimited Bladeworks anime, you should check out the visual novel if you can get your hands on it. A lot was cut in the making of the anime, and the Heaven's Feel route still hasn't found its way to the screen. Kinoko Nasu is a genius writer and everybody else, including the anime screenplay writers, are just working off his material. The thirty-five hours I spent reading that visual novel were some of the best of my life.

If you have the time, leave a review on your way out so I know what you'd like me to focus on in the next story.

Stay shiny, and see you around.

Alex


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